The Tale Of Young 'Tolkien' Adopts The Language Of A Standard Biopic

"Let's specify right at the start that movies are not history, and that biopics take liberties."

"Not taking liberties would mean not shaping the material of life to make it dramatic, so you'd never get a scene like, say, the one in which a young Tolkien and his college buddies declare undying devotion — declaring their friendship 'a fellowship.'"

"I'm gonna guess that that particular coinage didn't happen like that."

"But if you know that this guy would later write a book called The Fellowship of the Ring, it's a conversation you might like him to have had in college."

"The film connects dots a bit literally for a story about a guy whose imagination it's championing, but it's reasonably accurate about the facts of Tolkien's early life: He was was born in South Africa and home-schooled in England by his mother after his father died. He was eventually accepted at Oxford, where he had to beg Joseph Wright (Derek Jacobi) to let him into a class on linguistics."