Review:
"News of the World"
Release Date: Dec. 25, 2020
Rating: PG-13 Running Time: 119 minutes Tom Hanks has been favorably compared to James Stewart throughout his long and illustrious career. Like Stewart before him, Hanks has cultivated a “nice guy” onscreen and offscreen persona beyond reproach. This certainly feeds into Hanks’ choice in acting roles over the past decade, as he has specialized in portraying beloved cultural icons (Walt Disney, Fred Rogers, Ben Bradlee) or real-life heroes (Capt. Richard Phillips, Capt. Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger). Hanks instantly lends any character—real or fictional—with common decency, a sense of duty, and a strict moral code. Which, of course, describes his former Confederate Infantryman of News of the World, Capt. Jefferson Kyle Kidd. The nomadic war veteran may be indistinguishable from the many other virtuous men played by Hanks, but what this reunion with his Captain Phillips director Paul Greengrass apart from other films on Hanks’ extensive resume is that this is his first western. Stewart, of course, made many westerns from the late 1930s through the mid-1970s. And it is not hard to imagine Stewart saddling up as the kind and principled Kidd, who rides from Texas town to Texas town to read regional and national news stories before crowds desperately to know what is going on within and outside of state lines. Director Paul Greengrass’ stately adaptation of the novel by author Paulette Jiles finds Kidd ordered by Union officials outside of Dallas to escort a young girl (Helena Zengel) to her surviving family members in San Antonio. While the girl’s given name is Johanna Leonberger, she prefers to go by the name Cicada in honor of the Kiowa, the Native American tribe that first killed her parents and later raised the hostage child as their own. This post-Civil War western chronicles—often in violent outbursts—the dangerous trek undertaken by Kidd and Cicada but is less about the destination than the journey for Greengrass and credited co-screenwriter Luke Davies. Kidd’s reason for roaming across the Texas are not revealed until late in News of the World, but it is evident from the beginning that the Civil War has robbed him of more than the years he spent fighting. And it defines who he now is in a South that still struggles to cope with the loss to the North. News of the World is not so much a shot at redemption but an opportunity for a lost man to find his true place so late in life. Of course, News of the World rises or falls on the relationship between Kidd and Cicada. Hanks’ affability and inherent protective nature allows Kidd to slowly but effectively gain the suspicious Cicada’s trust. Zengel, a 12-year-old actress from Germany, says precious few words during the early moments of News of the World and then speaks often in her native tongue. Mastering the art of nonverbal communication seems to come easy to Zengel, who cannily uses her initial silence as a means to not only illuminate Cicada’s wisdom and resolve but to establish an unwavering authority in her interactions with Hanks. Unsurprisingly, this results in News of the World positioning Cicada as much as a participant in her travels home as it does Kidd. Kidd comes to need Cicada as much as Cicada needs Kidd. Keenly aware that News of the World revolves around the relationship between Kidd and Cicada, Greengrass employs his revisionist western’s shootouts and other violent confrontations only in the service of deepening the father-daughter bond that gradually develops between Kidd and Cicada. That said, Greengrass does not shy away from staging an extended shootout that allows Hanks to prove himself to be a fine gunslinger in the tradition of Stewart of John Wayne. It also allows Greengrass to reveal Cicada’s resourcefulness and survival instincts in unforced fashion. Greengrass also refrains from indulging in the frenzied pace that informed his Jason Bourne franchise, instead allowing News of the World room to breathe and time to soak in Dariusz Wolski’s glorious golden-hued photography. More important, during every moment Hanks reads to a captivated crowd, Greengrass conveys the power of the news to inform. News of the World has no time for thegaslighting windbags who have spent more than more years trying to divide a nation by attacking the media through their baseless claims of fake news. “Go make something your own,” Kidd tells a young man caught up in the news stories Kidd reads with truth and conviction. So speaks a man who is unknowingly writing a new chapter in a life that is devoted to storytelling. Robert Sims Aired: Dec. 24, 2020 Web sites: https://www.newsoftheworldfilm.com https://www.facebook.com/NewsOfTheWorldMovie/ |
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