Capsule Review of 'Lincoln' (2012), directed by Steven Spielberg, screenplay by Tony Kushner

This movie is an intimate blockbuster, a quiet, atypical offering by Spielberg. Exquisitely acted and filmed with short focal-length shots, the best aspect of the movie may be the screenplay written by Tony Kushner.

Favorite line: “If you’re going to sink in a swamp, what’s the use of a true north?”

For Lincoln, there was often a tension between pragmatism and principals. It is useful, then, to remember that to succeed one must often deviate from his or her set path, but must ever remain cognisent of the ultimate end goal.