News of the World is the second period movie to star Tom Hanks about the integrity of honest journalism that is a thinly veiled allegory for its importance in the era of Trump. It’s also his second teaming with director Paul Greengrass and the second time in one week I watched a movie that follows the relationship between a jaded old man and a small girl. But the movies’ politics definitely stuck out more colourfully to me than its’ main narrative focus, very blatant and direct is its commentary on the attitude towards reality in some ignorant corners of the United States. Simply stating the facts is an offence liable to rile up a crowd and turn them against the mere voice of that news -as happens early on in the film.
It’s the job of Hanks’ Captain Jefferson Kidd, a Civil War veteran in the early years of Reconstruction, to read the news, sourced from a variety of American local papers he carries with him, in the towns where it doesn’t travel by other means. Most of the film sees him across rural or barren Texas where there are far greater dangers than being obnoxiously interrupted during a reading. And yet it is in these situations where he seems in more peril than when at the mercy of the harsh wilderness, if he should happen to say something the locals don’t like. This is especially the case in one detour late in the film (News of the World is rather made up of little detours), where Kidd is drawn into a lawless town trying to recreate a pre-Civil War society, and the goons in charge pressure him to read a propaganda pamphlet as part of his news. It may well be the films’ high point, certainly its’ most intense and eerily familiar to witness –if also more than a little on the nose.
However, it does best that earlier scene for being less panderingly sympathetic to its’ targets of disdain. There’s a kind of flaccid Joe Biden theme of unity at play there as Kidd manages to calm a budding mob with sensitivity and platitudes –a fiction that more than anything else in this film seems to belong to that era of romanticized Hollywood westerns. Director Paul Greengrass though, whose last collaboration with Hanks was in Captain Phillips, is not one to generally romanticize things, and there is at least a narrative reason for some of Kidds’ appealing: that he too is a Southerner who fought alongside people like this in the Confederacy. The less tasteful sides of this fact are not surprisingly brushed under the rug a bit –no movie wants to emphasize a protagonist who fought for slavery, especially one played by so lovable an actor. But his service does hang over him through much of the story, his own coping and attempts to rebuild his life subtly expressed through such pacifist tendencies and language. There’s little of the substantive psychological re-examination in this as there probably ought to be, no personal reconciling with who and what he fought for -the story is much more concerned with Kidd’s relationship with the child he is forced to foster along his weary and dangerous journey.
It’s a significantly less compelling narrative than one more directly focused on Kidd and his rather unique job would be, but it is played with finesse. The girl was the daughter of German settlers killed in a Kiowa raid and then adopted into the tribe herself, legally called Johanna, but self-identifying as Cicada. She speaks mostly Kiowa, with a few words of German remembered, gradually taking on English as well –and it’s pretty impressive for the young Helena Zengel, who is one of the better child actors to emerge this year. She and Hanks have good chemistry (I know, shocking that Hanks can play a great father figure!), and her sense of cultural isolation is well-conveyed. The pair bond over a series of episodes, including one genuinely pretty good shoot-out sequence with a gang intent on “purchasing” her that is both very tense and very satisfying -at times feeling like Captain Phillips in miniature. It’s a very significant moment for Kidd and Johanna’s partnership that reverberates into the rest of the film -over the course of which, the ultimate direction is pretty clear, and likewise endearing enough, if not so dramatic as it might be.
News of the World moves at a steady pace, recreating its’ authentic western atmosphere as it does. Most of the story takes place in the desolate yet captivating desert between towns, Greengrass thus allowing the movie to be both tender and wild. Dariusz Wolski’s cinematography is at times crisp and harsh in conjunction with this. Of course the problem with this approach is that it isn’t always balanced -the simple, heartwarming, and grounded story cannot quite be so ordinary against the darker notes and truths that dot the periphery of it. In fact those things would require it be a little more intrepid. Both Kidd and Johanna are strong characters, greater than the film in which they star -each deserving of more complex development given their characterizations. And perhaps the southern alienation needed greater fleshing out too, and a less easy depiction on both significant accounts.
For the most part the film is a solid viewing experience though. Hanks and Greengrass make for a stable team, and it’s nice to see the veteran actor who’s graced a wide variety of types of film tackle a genre he’s never done before (even though arguably his most famous character is a cowboy). As uninterested as it may be in doing much new with a frankly well-worn premise, there’s something comfortable about it, and comforting; an ample distraction from, though not a full disregarding of, the depressing news of our world, you could say.
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