Saturday 11 January 2014

REVIEW - THE RAILWAY MAN


Not the respectful drama it initially purports to be, The Railway Man is actually a rather brutal and traumatic tour through the most profound effects of violence, whether physical or emotional. Jonathan Teplitzky adopts a somewhat crude manner in staging the two halves of his film: the sedate and the sadistic. The former benefits from reliable acting, but it is the latter which carries the greater force. The barbarity of what Teplitzky depicts is nothing out-of-the-ordinary in modern moviemaking, but the sheer shock it delivers when juxtaposed with some of The Railway Man's slower, simpler sections is. It is also more worthy of the grandeur with which Teplitzky infuses the film, grandeur which is quite misplaced in restrained sequences featuring Colin Firth and Nicole Kidman. Both actors who apparently effortlessly showcase heavy emotion concealed just beneath the surface, they are a good match, though Kidman is the wrong choice for the part - she seems ever on the verge of stepping up and dragging the truth out of her husband, which alas her character wouldn't even dream of doing. But Firth is harrowing in that unmannered fashion he possesses - this guy makes acting look so damn easy - and Jeremy Irvine gives a canny performance as Firth's younger self. It seems most unlikely at first that this film could ever morph into something so wrenching, indeed even when you think it's gone as far as it can, the material itself (a true story, albeit adapted with some dramatic licence) crawls ever further into the darkness, and some latter moments are remarkably distressing. The score by David Hirschfelder is typically heavy-handed, but is redeemed by lovely solo cello work toward the close.


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