Liverpool Sound and Vision rating 8.5/10
Cast: James Norton, Vanessa Kirby, Peter Sarsgaard, Joseph Mawle, Kenneth Cranham, Celyn Jones, Krzysztof Pieczynski, Beata Pozniak, Fenella Woolgar, Martin Bishop, John Edmondson, Michalina Olszanska, Martin Hugh Henley, Olena Leonenko, Edward Wolstenholme, Marcin Czarnik, Barry Mulkerns, Matthew Marsh.Mr. Jones. Film Review.Cast: James Norton, Vanessa Kirby, Peter Sarsgaard, Joseph Mawle, Kenneth Cranham, Celyn Jones, Krzysztof Pieczynski, Beata Pozniak, Fenella Woolgar, Martin Bishop, John Edmondson, Michalina Olszanska, Martin Hugh Henley, Olena Leonenko, Edward Wolstenholme, Marcin Czarnik, Barry Mulkerns, Matthew Marsh.
The stories we are not told in youth are the ones that arguably have the biggest baring on our lives in adulthood, for these are the ones that wipe away the years of nostalgia or certain beliefs that we have held dear and which are thankfully destroyed by the searing truth of light.
It is, even in an age of never-ending information at our fingertips and evidence based sites, still a shock to the system that we can be fairly naïve, unprepared to acknowledge damned lies and untruths that have been allowed to continue to circulate decades after the reality of the matter was presented to us.
We look at journalism in the 21st Century as a dirty word, perhaps even an occupation that confounds the idea of truth, for the sense of reality has become warped, disfigured by opinion masquerading as accuracy, the social media expert given credence above one who may have studied the subject intensely, the rise of spin impersonating the simplicity of fact. It was not always this way, and perhaps it won’t be again, but in an age where we find ourselves continually at odds with the message being broadcast, where our critical thinking has been taking to levels that overwhelm and damage relationships, such a profession will take a long to recover the reader’s belief.
It is to the shame of most of all who will watch the elegantly shot but harrowing truth of Mr. Jones that the name of both the Welsh journalist and the state sponsored famine of the early 1930s Ukraine have by and large been eradicated from the history books, only dedication and the preserve of truth bringing justice to Gareth Jones and the undocumented names of those who were starved, murdered on Stalin’s decree, to give the Soviet state the appearance of being anything than a murderous dictatorship concerned with standing tall in the world.
However and with thanks to stunning directing by Agnieszka Holland and a superb script by Andrea Chalupa, Mr. Jones does more than give the viewer insight into a lie created to deceive all but which drives home the message of how one person’s voice shouted loud enough and with the backing of the state, can persist as dogma and philosophy across generations.
The shame played out in the film at the hands of the Liverpool born journalist Walter Duranty makes the heart heavy with disappointment, makes it heave with anger and this prelude of emotions then finds its way into the starkness supplied by the superb acting of James Norton as Gareth Jones, Peter Sarsgaard as Walter Duranty and Joseph Mawle as George Orwell, the despair, the fear, the terrible injustice of the forgotten Ukrainian people who suffered cruelty and damnation at the hands of Stalin’s propaganda machine.
An exceptional piece of film making, harrowingly detailed, enlightening and driven, Mr. Jones is a film of towering intellect and belief.
Ian D. Hall