Following in the path of their previous collaboration Captain Phillips, Tom Hanks and Paul Greengrass have once again combined forces to make another vaguely entertaining, but mostly dull historical drama with a solid Hanks performance and a justly celebrated supporting performance. This time around its the age old story of a weary traveller who never had children who finds himself adopting an orphaned child for a trip. I don’t even think I need to comment in regards to spoilers that the two grow closer and form a deep bond. Alterations to the formula however are few and far between and ultimately I think it’s more than fair to say that News of the World is a pretty bland, but watchable, but pretty boring drama with a Hollywood legend as your tour-guide for 2 hours.
The film does have at the heart of it an intriguing premise, or at least rather an intriguing and interesting job for Hanks’ Captain Kidd to assume – with his role in life being to travel around the post Civil War west performing and delivering news through sermonising extracts from newspapers from far beyond each local town he visits. These scenes are perhaps the most interesting in the film and although they are sometimes plagued by insultingly obvious modern day comparison commentary, they do present an interesting angle to the old-west traveller that we haven’t seen on film before. As aforementioned Hanks brings great drama to this character, but mostly wanders through the film passively viewing much of what occurs – which is completely apt for his character, but a little uninteresting for a film. The film is also written by Greengrass, along with Luke Davies, adapted from Paulette Jiles’ novel of the same name. The script itself is a pretty service level affair, opting to tell its story simply and repeatedly subtlety, however again I comment that although this serves the story being told, it really isn’t as interesting as perhaps another story with this intriguing job at its centre could have been. The true star of the film is Helena Zengel as the child taken under Kidd’s wing, speaking extremely limited English and dealing with immense traumas, Zengel manages to bring plenty of depth to a role that so easily could have been awful – as we have seen so many times before. For many critics it’s Zengel that people are leaving the film talking about and I can understand why. From a cynical point of view, it’s also a great marketing story, with this being Zengel’s English language film debut, with that also even playing as an element to the plot. Cynicism aside however the performance is in my opinion more than worthy of the praise that it’s receiving.
Greengrass has also seemingly lost or moved away from for this project the usually overly frenetic energy, pace and editing of his Jason Bourne efforts, aswell as his more recent historical dramas. Opting instead rather this time for a more languid pace and shot variety befitting the style of a grand Old western. This is not to say that we’re dealing with John Ford levels of static shots and styles, but it certainly seems that way in comparison to Greengrass’s usual style. There are a few action sequences in the film and they are well-made and exciting as expected, but these thrills are few and far between and despite the immense tension you’d assume would be in the scenarios of the film, there really is an unfortunate lack of it in the overall feature. Most of the film just rides that fine line between mediocre and completely stale, any of the peaks are sparring and really not that high at all in my eyes. It’s by no means a bad film, but it’s also by no means an overly interesting one. A pretty average, and yes, unfortunately dull affair that I wouldn’t particularly recommended outside of those fellow Oscar race completionists.
A serviceable 4/10 whose vistas and journey are enough to invest in for its running time, but really leave very little to think about it or stick with you once your time with it has expired. Greengrass paints a worldly view of the west, but fails to maximise on the scale of the journey. Similarly Hanks offers another solid performance, but feels without a standout moment, again serviceable would be the aptest word to use. Zengel will be the thing people remember, even if in actuality it’s a pretty kichy and novelty based performance. Rather fitting actually for this pretty kichy and pretty novel film.
P.S. With a more than worthy nomination for Zengel, and hopefully nominations for Amanda Seyfried and Maria Bakalova and Ellen Burstyn, that Best Supporting Actress may be the tightest Oscar race of the year! My winner... I think for me it’s still Seyfried.
- - Thomas Carruthers
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