Even though some critics have been downright mean about this movie, it gives an insight to Lincoln and a friendship that lasted for years. It also does not just focus on the last four months of the 16th President's life. While Daniel Day Lewis did a great job of focusing on "that" Lincoln, if you look at the photographs of Lincoln and study the man, he was not the same as he was at the beginning of his Presidency. See this film, and push aside the fact that it isn't the Spielberg movie, forget the sparse sets and let the pictures and words from the time period take you back and into the story. It's factual, it's worth watching! You might just learn something about Lincoln, and if you're willing to move out of the "But it isn't Spielberg's Lincoln shell," you may be pulled into the history of a man who wasn't just his last four months of life.