Director Paul Greengrass moves away from action blockbusters and presents a warm gentle drama that seems too old-fashioned for 2021.
No genre of cinema is more synonymous with the USA than the Western. From the burnt orange towers of the Grand Canyon to Big Sky Montana, American scenery was made for the big screen. However grand and quintessentially American, Westerns have been associated with one-note politics and racist and sexist stereotypes for years. In recent years, there’s been a push for a more acceptable Western. But even with those politics humming in the background, News of the World feels like a dusty, aged newspaper.
Hollywood’s most lovable personality, Tom Hanks, stars as Captain Jefferson Kyle Kidd. He’s a former civil war soldier who now travels from town to town throughout 1870s Texas reading newspapers aloud. During his travels he finds Johanna (Helena Zengel) abandoned in the middle of nowhere, her black guide hanging from a tree only feet away. Johanna is German, but her parents were murdered by the native Kiowa when she was small, so was then raised by the Native Americans. She calls herself “Cicada” instead and speaks only Kiowa. After her tribe is murdered, her only family left are a German aunt and uncle. Even though the child’s Germanic heritage feels desperately foreign to her, Kidd is given the mission to return the child back to her community.
Hanks is dramatically different from your typical Western star. He’s no brooding and silent Clint Eastwood. With his grey knitted overcoat, Hanks is like a kindly grandfather figure. However, Kidd feels guilty about the death he caused while serving in the Civil War. The gentle timbre of his voice can tell stories of men fighting against their oppressors or floods further down the river, but he could easily kill a man. In short, it is the perfect role for Hanks, who is at his best when portraying likeable and warm characters. While his co-star Zengel barely speaks, her eyes shine with grief and trauma. After her role in 2019’s System Crasher, she portrays an all-together different child to the screaming anarchist banshee in her breakout film. Together, they present a warm father-daughter relationship with such dexterity and emotion, that the few words that Johanna utters are hardly needed.
Director Paul Greengrass thankfully abandons his famous Steadicam approach, which drove audiences into a spin as they watched the Bourne sequels. This is a rolling western drama rather than shoot-out after shoot-out. He relies on hazy blue mountain landscapes and undulating plains to ground his story. The drama unfurls slowly. There’s a gorgeous sense of deliberate pace mirrored in the cinematography, as the camera tracks slowly across cacti covered plains and towns full of horned cattle. Old America is captured in a rose-tinted snapshot, and the score chimes with the images harmoniously. Folksy yet powerful, the music helps to announce the never-ending landscape ahead of Kidd and Johanna. Each one of Greengrass’s directorial choices confirms that this would have been a cinematic marvel to see on the big screen.
News has become a currency. These are people trapped in their small towns across the American West, and the titbits that Kidd feeds them nourishes them with stories outside their town’s Main Street. He tells news of other counties and continents to swathes of illiterate workers. There’s a lovely softness to Greengrass’s western which promotes gentle understanding over fists and bullets. Although threads of this theme unravel by the film’s midpoint, there’s a charm about learning to understand each other’s cultures.
Despite the warmth and gravitas throughout the film, News of the World feels nothing more than yesterday’s news. Gentle, drama-led Westerns aren’t new. Westerns have repeatedly failed to unpack America’s past head-on. This film is about identity and belonging, but there’s nothing to suggest that this film is aware of the present. Johanna’s German relatives are fleshed out and characterised as her ultimate destination. However, her Kiowa family are treated like mythic people, who are nothing but vague imaginations. There’s a niggling feeling that Zengel’s character, as good as her performance is, would have been better served narratively by an indigenous actor.
The Verdict
News of the World is hardly groundbreaking. However, both Tom Hanks and Helena Zengel are impressive leads, and the evolving father-daughter dynamic is putty in their hands. Although Greengrass’s America is a little rough around the edges, the realities of 1870s Texas are airbrushed out. News of The World marks a nice break away from the loud action films that Greengrass is associated with, but the film isn’t breaking news.
Rating: 7/10
News of the World is currently available to watch on Netflix.
Words by Lucy Clarke
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