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****
Dir: Saul Dibb (12A 107 mins)
RC Sherriff’s play about the 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. Asa Butterfield is Raleigh, young and impulsive, believing war will be an adventure, he volunteers with his sister’s fiancé Stanhope, played by Sam Claflin, a commando coming apart at the seams. This is not the man he knew in peacetime, Stanhope drinks and is hardened by war, only tempered by the sage gentleness of Paul Bettany’s Osbourne. Stanhope’s troops in the trenches have been given a suicide mission – hold the line in face of terrible bombardment – the sheer futility of it all effortlessly captured. Relying on the acting rather than spectacle to increase the harrowing awfulness of war, this adaptation allows us time with the main characters, from Toby Jones’ makeshift chef Mason to Stephen Graham’s ever-hungry Trotter and Tom Strurridge’s cowardly Hibbert. Richly drawn and nerve shredding this captures the horror and stupidity of war, a timely lesson still not learned.
Out February 2