Quartile rating: 7/10 · 1 rating
In 1933, Welsh journalist Gareth Jones travels to Ukraine, where he experiences the horrors of a famine. Everywhere he goes he meets henchmen of the Soviet secret service who are determined to prevent news about the catastrophe from getting out. Stalin’s forced collectivisation of agriculture has resulted in misery and ruin—the policy is tantamount to mass murder.
Mr. Jones (2019) is a well-crafted historical thriller that shines brightest in its cinematography — Tomasz Naumiuk's stark, harrowing visuals of the Ukrainian countryside and the famine victims are genuinely striking and among the film's strongest assets. The plot is solid and important, dramatizing a largely forgotten chapter of history (the Holodomor), though it occasionally feels didactic and the parallel framing device involving George Orwell writing Animal Farm is more clever than seamlessly integrated. Acting is competent across the board — James Norton is earnest if somewhat stiff as Gareth Jones, and Peter Sarsgaard offers a slippery turn as Walter Duranty — but no performance reaches truly memorable heights. Novelty is decent; while the subject matter is underexplored in Western cinema, the film itself follows fairly conventional biopic-thriller structure. The ending is serviceable but somewhat abrupt, relying on title cards to deliver emotional weight that the film itself hasn't quite earned dramatically. Overall it's an above-average, important film that excels visually but is constrained by conventional storytelling.