A British drama, “The Choral” looks back to 1916, a divisive time of national suffering.

Thousands of English troops were being slaughtered in the trench warfare against Germany. “Choral” is set in an English village trying to continue its Christmas Choral tradition, despite wartime handicaps.

As the choral conductor has enlisted and must be replaced, the unenthusiastic choice is Ralph Fiennes’ Dr. Henry Guthrie, who has several marks against him.

There’s the fact that until the war he was living in Berlin with his male partner. Maybe worse, he championed now-forbidden German music.

Finding a substitute means dropping Bach to play Edward Elgar’s “The Dream of Gerontius.” Elgar is a Catholic, and Guthrie, as conductor of a religiously themed concert, is also, irritatingly, an atheist.

“As far as this film is concerned I’d like to think it’s in the tradition of English filmmaking set in small communities that always have an element of ironic humor,” offered “Choral” director Nicholas Hytner in a joint virtual interview with Fiennes.

Guthrie is, Fiennes, 62, observed, “A man who believes in the power of art to change lives.

“He’s basically stating his essential truth: That the power of art is to enrich us. And take us back to some spiritual sanity.

“I believe in that: The power of music, theater, dance.”

As for Fiennes’ relationship with conducting, “I quickly realized,” he said with a laugh, “I needed a crash course in conducting.” He found Australian conductor Natalie Murray Beale. “She’s known for coaching Cate Blanchett for ‘Tár.’

“I had a wonderful but challenging time. I suddenly had a whole journey to know music at that kind of level of intimacy. I love music but I don’t have training. It was challenging because of the specificity a conductor must have. My primary focus was getting ‘inside’ the music of the film. I’m in awe of conductors now.”

Fiennes filmed the rebooted “The Hunger Games” franchise as President Cornelius Snow and leads the way in another franchise film, the sequel “28 Days Later: The Bone Collector,” which opens this week.

Signing on to a global franchise is nothing new for the thrice Oscar-nominated Fiennes: He was, after all, “He who must not be named” aka Voldemort in the “Harry Potter” series and James Bond’s boss as M.

“I just have a gut instinct,” he said of how he decides to join a franchise. “You read it and say, ‘I’d like to do this.’ And ‘28 Years Later’? Yes, it was a franchise but with brilliant writing, in both films, by Alex Garland. Fantastically rich!

“In reprising Donald Sutherland’s President Snow,” in ‘Hunger Games,’ “I had no hesitation.”