Mr. Jones

MR. JONES - Samuel Goldwyn Films

Agnieszka Holland's Mr. Jones tries its hand at being a political thriller and for the most part, succeeds. However, in its sleek running time of just under one hundred and twenty minutes, Holland's feature fails to utilise its strong cast and central narrative gravitas with any profound impact.

Half biopic and half historical thriller, Mr. Jones is a film that seemingly would benefit as a mini-series in the same vein as Craig Mazin's Chernobyl, rather than a streamline feature film. The issue, which arises before long, is that Holland's film can not quite choose between honouring the biographical account of journalist Gareth Jones or the harrowing famine that is taking place. The film, for most of its running time – if not all of it – wrestles with this tone, and for each emphatic point and side taken, the other takes a drastic back seat. Such a narrative demonstrates a passive nature, resulting in the lack of gravitas of each arc.

It all gets even more confusing when the film solely focuses on one arc or the other with strong thematic impact. The engulfed life and impact on Jones’ mental health after what he goes through are crafted in a harrowing and poignantly profound manner. The character is expertly brought to the screen from rising actor James Norton (Little Women, McMafia). He gives a wonderfully impenetrable performance with substantial emotional range, which brings a heartfelt insight into the journalist's psychological state. That being said, Norton’s charismatic and charming portrayal includes a perceived contextual naivety, and in this theme, Norton drives the engagement levels tenfold, diving into the unknown.

It is that very serious and distressing unknown on the other side of the story - the 1930s famine in the Soviet Union. It is this aspect that is intensified with profoundly terrifying consequence and depth. The terror of this moment in history is captured in all its devastation and brutality, via the gloomy production design by Grzegorz Piatkowski and stretched handheld camerawork from cinematographer Tomasz Naumiuk. 

However, as stated above, Agnieszka Holland's film throughout has trouble centralising on one theme over the other, and in doing so, underwhelms in the performances and narrative. Vanessa Kirby as Ada Brooks is ultimately left to pander in a bloated melodramatic cameo with Peter Sarsgaard – as Pultizer prize winner Walter Duranty –also having extremely little to do, apart from a brief but brilliant verbal duel with Norton's Jones. The political thriller underbelly also loses a considerable amount of momentum and lacks depth. The famine plot is not necessarily delving into more substantial depths to showcase its horror as far as it probably could and should do. 

Undoubtedly Agnieszka Holland's Mr. Jones is a solid and engaging feature. However, it is a film that disappoints since it never goes deeper into any of its characters or plot than being one-note and conventional. Both the titular character and central plot have to fight for airtime with no clear victor, reinforcing the fact that Mr. Jones would be far more inclined to have been an eight or ten-part series to dig far deep in the political and societal landscape of this harrowing moment in history.

MR. JONES is released February 7th 2020