Director: Agnieszka Holland
Writer: Andrea Chalupa (Screenplay)
Starring: James Norton, Vanessa Kirby, Peter Sarsgaard, Joseph Mawle, Kenneth Cranham, Celyn Jones
Plot: A Welsh journalist breaks the news in the western media of the famine in the Soviet Union in the early 1930s.
Tagline – The truth can’t be hidden forever.
Runtime: 1 Hour 59 Minutes
There may be spoilers in the rest of the review
Story: Mr Jones starts as journalist Gareth Jones (Norton) who has famously interviewed Hitler, has turned his attention to the Soviet Union, wanting to learn more about how Starling is affording the expenses that they have been making. Gareth makes new connections in Moscow with Walter Duranty )Sarsgaard) the man everyone turns to when they arrive in Moscow, but it his star writer Ada Brooks (Kirby) that will give Gareth the advice he needs, which will see him head outside of the city to the Ukraine to expose the truth about what is happening in the Soviet Union.
Thoughts on Mr Jones
Thoughts – Mr Jones follows one journalist’s determined journey to look for as story in the Soviet Union, a story which shows how the country would control the stories about it, while hiding a bleak truth that will see millions die, only he doesn’t know this until he sees it first-hand. Gareth Jones must try to break the traditions of the journalists in Russia to break his own story, one that will show how other people will look to cover up anything coming out, where his story could just be spun into that, nothing but a story, while he knows it is the truth, an important truth that needs to be told. The performance from James Norton in the leading role is great, where he starts with the optimism he has about his stories, before showing just how broken he is about what he sees.
Final Thoughts – Mr Jones is an interesting look at one of the first story exposures of all time.
