“Before Dawn” Wrestles With the Futility of War
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We’ve all heard stories of “the great war,” mostly told from the perspective of American or European troops or those left behind in their respective homes. We don’t often hear about Australia’s contribution to World War I, though the island nation made relatively heavy sacrifices as well. An estimated 60,000 out of 330,000 Australian soldiers were killed with 165,000 wounded in the four-year war. Jordon Prince-Wright tells the story of these brave men in Before Dawn, a war film following an Australian battalion on the Western Front. Though the plot has a somewhat frustrating lack of direction, Prince-Wright uses the story of a single soldier and his noble companions to highlight the futility of war in and of itself.
I’m not an expert on World War I, and after watching Before Dawn, you won’t be either. Prince-Wright focuses mainly on a single soldier and the men fighting alongside him in the muddy trenches. Jim (Levi Miller) is a Western Australian teen convinced to enlist by his patriotic friends. Against his father’s wishes, the contemplative boy rides off to war in the middle of the night and spends the next 900+ days locked in bloody battle. When his friends die soon after joining the conflict, Jim begins to question the wisdom of his rash decision. We follow the frightened young man and his fellow soldiers on a series of battles leading up to Armistice Day. As Jim regrets his decision to go to war, we begin to question the purpose of this endless campaign.
Miller helms the film as the heroic Jim. After breakout roles as a child actor, he excels in a more mature role and provides a conduit for the audience into this impenetrable conflict. Travis Jeffery, Ed Oxenbould, and Stephen Peacocke are equally impressive as his brothers in arms, though none of them are given anything particularly novel to do. Prince-Wright makes the most of a limited budget, keeping us mainly in the trenches with these likable men. This allows us to focus on the human element of this harrowing story, but it does begin to feel as if scenes and battles are running together. Outside the trenches, the small budget becomes more apparent and it’s difficult to believe we’ve been dropped into the midst of war-torn France. Though attention to detail is admirable regarding props, costumes, and settings, we never feel truly immersed in the scope of a world-wide conflict. Cuts to black provide handy exits to grandios scenes, but we occasionally feel as if something has gone wrong with the film itself.
Perhaps this pointless meandering is intentional. Jim opens the film saying he should have listened when his father told him not to enlist and his opinion of the conflict grows more negative over time. The story has an aimlessness that doesn’t seem to be building to anything but the end of the war. Jim has no real connection to his battalion’s overall goals other than wanting to save his fellow soldiers and longing to go home. Like him, we get lost in the endless series of days and the stakes of each mission begin to blur. Prince-Wright seems fuzzy on the details as well. At one point, two soldiers sustain what appear to be mortal wounds, but we see them fully healed moments later with no real explanation for how they recovered or rejoined their unit.
Prince-Wright seems to be exploring the devastation of war and a seemingly endless campaign costing thousands of lives. Our heroes question what it was all for and if their sacrifices will matter at all. It’s a lofty message and a question worth asking – one that grows increasingly prescient with each passing year. Unfortunately Before Dawn succumbs to the futility of its nebulous plot and loses the audience in a sea of similar battles.
Jenn Adams is a writer, podcaster, and film critic from Nashville, TN. Find her social media nonsense @jennferatu.