Search for a lost home : "News of the World"

Tom Hanks and Paul Greengrass's previous collaboration based on the true events of the drama "Captain Phillips" / Captain Phillips brought both rave reviews from critics, eight BAFTA nominations and six Oscars, and the film itself made good money at the box office. It is not surprising that the creative duo decided to try to repeat that success, especially since the protagonist of the film News of the World is also an interesting personality and, again, ... a captain. Captain of the losing Confederate Army Jefferson Kyle Kidd.

Most classic and modern westerns are, in fact, road movies. The heroes, for any weighty reasons or for their own folly, go from point A to point B, getting into various troubles on the way, demonstrating true heroism or incredible meanness. The News of the World by Paul Greengrass, which is an adaptation of the novel of the same name by Paulette Giles, published in 2016, was no exception.Late last year, the film was released in a limited release in the United States, and has now appeared on Netflix, which has bought distribution rights.

1870, Texas. The South has not yet moved away from the events of the Civil War. Ordinary people, ordinary farmers, former soldiers, feel like losers, betrayed, abandoned. The federal authorities are not trusted, the Yankee soldiers who patrol the roads and garrisoned in many cities are openly hated. During the five post-war years, the South lived, in fact, under occupation. Any southerner man could be stopped at any moment by soldiers who were ready to search him for prohibited weapons (only hunting weapons are allowed) and demand to show an oath of allegiance, a kind of passport substitute for southerners who took part in hostilities.

Captain Jefferson Kyle Kidd, a middle-aged man who fought on the Confederate side, makes his living by traveling from town to town, reading newspaper news to illiterate or time-consuming residents. A sort of off-site CNN of the mid-19th century represented by one person. Such performances do not bring significant income, but the captain is satisfied with this, for some reason he does not want to return to his wife in San Antonio, preferring a nomadic life.

And then one day Captain Kidd picks up a ten-year-old girl on the road who does not understand a word of English. The accompanying documents say that she is the daughter of German colonists Johanna Leonberger, who at a very young age, during one of the raids, was kidnapped by the Kiowa Indians. The Indians adopted the girl, but during another clash with the US Army, her adoptive parents were killed and the military, who found the child, decided to send her to the only surviving relatives - her uncle and aunt. But the girl was lost again, and now Captain Kidd agrees to take her to her family.

This is where the traditional American road movie begins, with all its inherent cliches, conventions and a predictable ending. The girl considers herself a Kiowa, does not remember her real parents, strives to run away, does not want to wear European dress and is not at all ready for life in a “civilized” society. On the other hand, Captain Kidd doesn’t know how to handle little girls and doesn’t know how to make a child open up ... If you’ve seen at least a few Hollywood road movies, then you know very well how Kidd and young Johanna’s relationship will develop and how it will ultimately end this story.

The analogies that the authors of News of the World draw between the fates of Johanna Leonberger and Captain Kidd also lie on the surface. Both of them are lost in this world, the girl is a stranger and among the American settlers, whom she does not understand and whose rules she is not going to follow, and a stranger among the Kiowas, who will no longer accept her back. At the same time, she lost her parents twice, the first time they were killed by the Kiowa raiders, the second time by the US military.

And, unfortunately, Johanna remembers both those and other events. In the same way, Captain Kidd is a stranger in his own country, occupied by the northerners, but he is also a stranger among the southerners, many of whom are far from being the most pleasant people and strive to harm him or the girl who came under his care. Actually, the need to protect the girl and bring her home becomes that core,

In this regard, News of the World almost completely repeats another film that was released just a couple of weeks ago on the competing Apple TV + service - Palmer / Palmerdirected by Fisher Stevens with Justin Timberlake in the title role. The protagonist Palmer is released from prison, where he spent a long time, and cannot find himself at large. The only thing that makes him pull himself together is a strange little boy, the son of a drug-addicted neighbor, whom Palmer, unwillingly, begins to look after.

Actually, the plot of News of the World and Palmer are identical, adjusted for genre and time period, and the films end the same. Lost people find the meaning of life in helping each other. And this is just one, very recent example, in fact, a lot of films on this topic have already been shot, I think you yourself can easily remember a couple or two.

It is this secondary nature and predictability that is one of the main problems of News of the World. Second, there is very little western in this western. There is only one skirmish here, and even then, it does not differ in special dynamism. Yes, the film is not about that at all, but still you expect some kind of dynamics in the western, but there is absolutely no such dynamics here.

But everything is fine with acting. And if we had absolutely no doubts about the skill of Tom Hanks, then the young Helena Zengel, who plays the first half of the film almost without words, really impressed us. As well as critics. For this role, the girl has already been nominated for several prestigious awards and I think their number will only grow in the near future.

Should you watch News of the World? If you love unhurried narrative films and good acting, if you like the setting and are interested in looking at the South of the United States a few years after the defeat in the war, you will most likely not regret the time spent. If you're looking for a classic western with chases and gunfights, then this is clearly not the movie you want.

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