In 1797, British MP William Wilberforce, ill and taking a recuperative holiday in Bath, talks with Barbara Spooner, who encourages him to recount how he reached his present situation. The story flashes back fifteen years to 1782, when Wilberforce was a young, ambitious and popular Member of Parliament who underwent a deep religious awakening. Helped by friends such as William Pitt and by John Newton, a former slave ship captain turned Christian, he resolves to devote his career to fighting the slave trade, an unpopular cause that sets him against powerful commercial interests and brings a long series of setbacks in Parliament.

How it was made

Directed by Michael Apted from a screenplay by Steven Knight, the film was shot mainly in Hull, in the East Riding of Yorkshire, where Baker's Quay stood in for the London East India Docks of around 1780. Parliament scenes were filmed at the 1743 church within Chatham Historic Dockyard, and the wedding at St Mary's Church in Garsington, Oxfordshire. David Arnold composed the score and Remi Adefarasin shot the photography. Producers included Terrence Malick and Edward R. Pressman, and the cast was led by British performers including Ioan Gruffudd, Romola Garai, Michael Gambon, Albert Finney and Benedict Cumberbatch.

Reception and legacy

The film premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival in September 2006 and opened in wide US release in February 2007, a date chosen to coincide with the bicentennial of the British parliamentary vote that banned the slave trade. Critics responded favourably, although some found it a conventional, unadventurous biopic in the manner of older studio biographies. Cumberbatch's performance drew particular praise, and the film holds a 68 percent score on Rotten Tomatoes. Its Christian-themed soundtrack, which includes Chris Tomlin's title song, won the Instrumental Album of the Year award at the 2008 Dove Awards. It is remembered as a representative example of historical cinema focused on the abolitionist struggle.