Mr Jones - 2019 film review

Mr Jones is a film from three years ago, a historical thriller based on a true story concerning a cover-up in Moscow of terrible events in Ukraine. Sound familiar? It is chilling that, we are now witnessing the appalling impact of a present day Russian invasion of the same country. The circumstances are different, but I think that recent events make this film even more interesting than it was at the time of its release.

To my shame, I'd never heard of the Welsh journalist Gareth Jones whose courageous exposure of the truth about life in Stalin's empire caused consternation in the Thirties. In all honesty, I was attracted to the film because Jones is played by James Norton, a brilliant actor whose versatility I admire. The cast also includes Vanessa Kirby, Fenella Woolgar, Peter Sarsgaard (very good here) and the consistently excellent Kenneth Cranham, playing David Lloyd George.

Jones is a brilliant journalist - and linguist - who has, when the action starts, already interviewed Hitler. He has the idea of interviewing Stalin, whom many people in the West believed at that time was creating a glorious new society. Once Jones gets to Moscow, and meets the dodgy Pulitzer Prize winner Walter Duranty, a Kremlin apologist played by Sarsgaard, he starts to wonder if everything is really as it seems. A traumatic trip to Ukraine reveals many horrors, which he is determined to bring to light.

The film is excellent in many ways, but the pace does flag at times. A story as good as this deserves a really sharp script. Given the emphasis placed on the notion that 'there is only one truth', it's also rather disconcerting to learn just how much of the film is invented. George Orwell, who plays a part in the story, never met Jones, while some of the incidents in Ukraine appear never to have happened. I understand why film-makers make stuff up, even in stories based on real life, but I'm not convinced some of the embellishments were necessary. But what matters most is that this is a powerful story. It certainly made me think.

Grantchester - ITV review

It took me twenty-four hours to get the chance to watch ITV's new period (1950s) detective show Grantchester, based on the books by James Runcie, son of a former Archbishop of Canterbury. This was because I've been away on a trip to Oxford and the Cotswolds - and when I watched the show it reminded me, just as the trip did, of the loveliness of many parts of England. I visited Hidcote, a National Trust gem that is home to one of the country's finest gardens (amazing to see such a profusion of colour among the flowers, not just the autumn leaves, at this time of the year), and the market town of Chipping Campden, complete with a wonderful second hand bookshop, as well as the Congregation Hall in Oxford, a slice of history dating back to the fourteenth century and now converted to a vibrant cafe crammed with students.

Grantchester is set around Cambridge, not Oxford, but it blends many of the ingredients to be found in Endeavour and other popular detective shows - Midsomer Murders, Agatha Christie's Marple and Father Brown spring to mind. It's genteel, rather than gritty, and though I'm not keen on the term 'cosy' as applied to crime fiction, it's hard to deny that this was a cosy show with a rural vicar as amateur sleuth, the sort of programme that you expect to find on a Sunday evening. Most of the reviews I've seen have been very positive, and I wonder if that reflects the same sort of interest in traditional detective fiction (perhaps coupled with a nostalgic yearning for the past) that has caused the British Library Crime Classics to become so successful.

It's hard to create a truly baffling TV whodunit that is over and done with in rather less than an hour, once commercial breaks are accounted for, but the story - about the supposed suicide of a rascally solicitor - was competently done. However, I suspect that Grantchester is less likely to succeed because of its story-lines than through the casting of James Norton as the vicar, Sidney Chambers. When last seen on TV, Norton was the convincingly psychopathic Tommy in Happy Valley; this role could scarcely be more different, and Norton's ability to excel in both roles demonstrates what a fine actor he is. The cast also includes Robson Green as Sidney's police inspector pal Geordie. They make an odd couple among sleuths, but I suspect that Grantchester will enjoy a lot of success.

Much as I love traditional detective fiction, I'm also keen on crime stories with a harder edge. Similarly, much as I like the chocolate-box prettiness of the Cotswolds, I also find less well-heeled places like Liverpool entrancing. For me, Happy Valley was a long way ahead of Grantchester as a TV drama because of its much greater originality. But that doesn't mean that I didn't enjoy Grantchester.  On the contrary, much of the enduring appeal of crime fiction is due to the fact that the genre is exceptionally diverse, and both shows are well-crafted, presenting a picture of different facets of English life at different times and in different parts of the country. It's perfectly possible to enjoy both noir and nostalgia..



 

Happy Valley - how good was it?

After settling in back home, I've caught up with the final two episodes of Sally Wainwright's Happy Valley. Suffice to say that they lived up to the quality of the first four instalments. If there is a better crime series on television this year, I'll be surprised and impressed. I was gripped from start to finish.

A word about the acting. Sarah Lancashire was brilliant as the appealing yet damaged police sergeant, and is sure to win plenty of awards for demonstrating a remarkable range of very believable emotions. The supporting cast was also excellent. James Norton played a chilling and psychopathic villain, yet he managed to endow Tommy Lee Royce with one or two redeeming qualities. He was such a plausible loser,you would never guess that Norton is a product of Ampleforth and Cambridge. His shifting relationship with scheming villain Ashley (Joe Armstrong) was superbly done. Those two men really can act to a very high standard.

And now for the writing. Sally Wainwright delivered an outstanding script that drew on some of the better elements of soap opera dramatics, without compromising on originality, and created credible characters with whom it was all too easy to empathise, even in some cases (Kevin the accountant springs to mind) where the empathy was barely deserved. There were several lines that were genuinely memorable, a few that were brilliantly witty, and a number of scenes that were poignant without being contrived. You could never be sure what was going to happen next. It was even more striking than Broadchurch, my favourite cop drama of 2013.

A few plot strands, especially about police corruption, were left unresolved, a whopping clue to the fact that a follow-up series is likely. Will it be as good as this one? I have no idea, but if it is, it will be unmissable.