Director Agnieszka Holland's 'Mr. Jones' exposes Stalin's evils with spurts of epic filmmaking but attempts to tell too many stories. Read Peter Travers' review
It’s all three, actually, adding up to a garbled, fragmented muddle when clarity should have been of the essence. This being Holland, Mr. Jones is not without spurts of epic filmmaking, notably in the stark portrayal of human misery in the Ukraine scenes. There is also no doubting the contemporary relevance in this largely untold story of a journalist who exposed those governments and individuals who turned a willing blind eye as they hurtled toward another world war.
You can feel Holland’s rage at the bureaucratic walls erected to block this courageous reporter. Prime Minister Lloyd George , a fellow Welshman, dismisses Jones as a foreign advisor when his views prove detrimental to Britain’s financial interests.
More distractions come in Jones’ relationship with Ada Brooks , a writer who knows Jones is telling the truth but lies to keep her job in the so-called free press. Orwell also returns in the person of Joseph Mawie to remind us that “the world is being invaded by monsters” and that he wrote Animal Farm because he thought readers would find the truth easier to take if spoken by farm animals.
All well and good. But these diversions are no substitute for building Jones into a character we can understand from the inside, flaws and all.
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