Mr. Jones (2019)
Film details
Thriller · Drama · History · Agnieszka Holland · 1h 59min
Synopsis
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.
Verdict
Serious historical drama celebrating the courage to seek the truth.
In-depth analysis
Mr. Jones soberly reconstructs the journey of Welsh journalist Gareth Jones to Soviet Ukraine in 1933, where he documented the Holodomor — the genocidal famine that Stalin denied and the West ignored. The film functions as both a political thriller and a meditation on the price of truth in times of systematic falsehood. Director Agnieszka Holland avoids sensationalism: she films the horror of starvation with respect for the victims and with cold fury against the propaganda machine that concealed it. James Norton embodies Jones with the tenacity of a man who knows that silence is complicity. The connection to Orwell and Rebelión en la granja closes the narrative as a parable on how totalitarianism perverts language itself.
For parents: it is adult content due to its themes — death by starvation, political repression, historical starkness — but narratively necessary to understand the dimension of the crime. There is no ideological agenda beyond the staunch defense of objective truth against the totalitarian State. A valuable work for mature adolescents who need to understand that freedom of the press and truth are not guaranteed achievements.