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JOURNEY’S END | FILM REVIEW
****
Dir: Saul Dibb
Starring: Paul Bettany, Toby Jones
(12A, 107 mins)
RC Sherriff’s play about the last hours of the First World War premiered in 1928 with a young Laurence Olivier in the cast. This fifth film version however escapes stuffy stage confines with a still claustrophobic but universal and deeply human tale of adversity in the face of overwhelming odds, helped by uniformly strong performances. The horror of war is captured unflinchingly, despite it being well worn territory, thanks to the superbly-realised characters.
Asa Butterfield is Raleigh, young and impulsive; like many young men he blindly goes off to war, believing it will be a great adventure and not the senseless mud-drenched slough of misery and death that it is. He has gone to join up with his sister’s fiancé Stanhope, played by Sam Claflin, a commander coming apart at the seams. Claflin has never been better. Often consigned to bland roles, he grabs the emotional hell of Stanhope with both hands, reflecting everything from spittle-flinging rage to hopelessness to compassion. He is not the man Raleigh knew in peace time; Stanhope drinks and is hardened by war, only tempered by the sage gentleness of Paul Bettany’s Osbourne.
Bettany is a font of calm amidst the emotional devastation, resigned to his fate, his stiff upper lip hardly trembling. When that lip does finally tremble, it’s deeply moving. Stanhope’s troops in the trenches have been given a suicide mission: hold the line in the face of terrible bombardment, the sheer futility of it all effortlessly captured. Relying on acting rather than spectacle to depict the harrowing awfulness of war, the camera stays close on the actors’ faces as battle commences, devoid of epic, sweeping shots of conflict.
Dibb’s adaptation is all about the inhumanity of senseless conflict. We spend time with the rich characters played with aplomb by the supporting cast; from Toby Jones’ makeshift chef Mason, hiding out in the kitchen from the trenches but rising to the challenge when it comes; Stephen Graham’s ever hungry Trotter using food as a comforter; and Tom Strurridge’s cowardly Hibbert, realising that he is doomed. The commanders, knowing they are sending men to certain death care little – Stanhope rages against them, but accepts his fate as do the others, this grim resignation both angering and moving the viewer. Unfortunately as relevant today as it was in 1928, this richly-drawn and nerve-shredding drama captures the horror and stupidity of war, through its participants. There is no glory here, only pointlessness.
words Keiron Self
Out now in cinemas