Director Agnieszka Holland was quite a big deal in the 1990s, but after the release of Washington Square in 1997, she has spent most of her time directing episodes of US TV series. Hopefully, Mr Jones will spark something of a late career renaissance.
The versatile James Norton stars as Gareth Jones, a young Welsh freelance journalist who travels to the Soviet Union in 1933, after losing his job as foreign affairs adviser to former prime minister, David Lloyd George. He initially intends to use his connections to secure an interview with Stalin, but instead, eludes the authorities and makes his way to The Ukraine. There he witnesses the effects of The Holmodor, a famine deliberately manufactured by the Soviet government which killed approximately 3.5 million people.
Despite these events taking place nearly 90 years ago, this is a powerful and vital film. Holland pulls no punches with the depiction of the starving Ukranians. She also provides some striking visual flourishes, especially in the first half of the film, that make references to both German expressionism and the work of Eisenstein. Later, black and white is tastefully and sparingly used.
The cast is uniformly good. As well as Norton, Kenneth Cranham is great as Lloyd George, Vanessa Kirby depicts a conflicted colleague well and Peter Sarsgaard is fabulously slimy as the odious New York Times reporter, Walter Duranty.
A tough and fascinating film that shines light on a largely forgotten piece of history.
Rating: 9 out of 10