Mr. Jones

This is a powerful film which I'm afraid few people will watch. Even those who watch it, may feel the situations it portrays are exaggerated or completely made up. They are not. The problems caused by Stalin in Ukraine are, if anything, downplayed.

But beyond the historical accuracy are the questions about the behavior of the people and their morality as it is portrayed in the film. Did diplomats and politicians really behave like this? Not only did they behave like this. They continue to behave like this. I've worked in government NGOs overseas and I've seen the insincerity of most diplomats close up. I've also experienced their ability to blind themselves of the truth if the truth endangers their high paid positions.

There are people out there now who know the truth and who are being told to keep quiet. There are people I've known who were undermined when trying to do what was right. So, this movie is telling the truth for them. You may not like what it has to say, but who says the truth has to be pleasant.

It felt a bit like 'Spotlight' transported back into the 1930s USSR. It sees journalist Gareth Jones traveling to Ukraine, and discovering the horrors of Stalin's man-made famine. This is the first film I've seen depicting this particular atrocity, despite learning about it (and the Holocaust) in school.

The film certainly shifted intensity once Gareth finds a way to reach Ukraine and slowly discovers the conditions firsthand. Numerous scenes will be etched in my memory - fruit on a train, a crying baby, singing children, "Kolya" and a footchase through snow-covered forest. It was intense. Some viewers will probably start feeling some of the hunger themselves.

James Norton delivered a really strong performance as Gareth Jones. Vanessa Kirby and Peter Sarsgaard were great in supporting roles too. Peter Sarsgaard seems to be seriously typecast as the sleazeball villain in everything these days.

The film follows the story of Gareth Jones as much as it does the famine itself, interceded with appearances of George Orwell. It's the first film I've seen by director Agnieszka Holland and I'm impressed! Will keep a lookout for her future work. Disappointing "Mr Jones" has somehow slipped under the radar for many. Definitely recommend this to those after a powerful, though-provoking film depicting real-life events.

All the terror, horror and atrocities of the war and its effects on Ukraine, the Holodomor (Famine of Terror or the Great Famine), including empty villages, starving people, cannibalism and the forced harvest of grain, a beautiful but belated homage to the Lord Gareth Jones (journalist), very sad, appropriate for the current war Russia x Ukraine, a real story, Portraits of War, told simply and efficiently, as he wanted and reports at the beginning of the film...

Sometimes cinema can bring history alive and little known facts and personalities can be highlighted or rediscovered, and so it is here. Gareth Jones was a diplomat and journalist who wrote about the terrible famine in the Ukraine during the early 1930s which the Soviet's, and many others, we're trying to hide at the time. It's a sober but fascinating insight into a almost forgotten episode, and is very skilfully done with a fine central performance by Edward Norton as Jones and well staged scenes of his tense visits to the USSR and his gradual discovery of the regimes corruption and lies. Tightly scripted and directed, this is one worth discovering.

Saw this at Berlinale and was impressed. Agnieszka Holland created a strong historical drama, employing artistical license here an there. But the main points (different from what user-973-741969 claims in his review) are true. Blasphemy it is only to those who still worship Stalin. The movie follows political advisor/journalist Gareth Jones. After losing his job with the british foreign secretary in London he tries to reeignite his career through an interview with Stalin. And why not since he already interviewed Hitler and Goebbels (where the movie lazily unterplays his admiration for the pre-war-Nazis. Sadly Jones didn´t live to see their downfall and could never reevaluate his naivety). In Moscow, Jones contacts NYT-Reporter Duranty, who is well connected an a staunch supporter of Stalin. Jones doesnt make it to the Soviet Leader but can board a train south to inspect the industrialisation of the Soviet Union. But he escapes the agents that accompany him and travels on his own through Ukraine to witness the Holodomor, a famine that cost millions of lives as a result of Stalins communist reshaping of agriculture in 1933 and was until then mostly unheard of outside of the USSR - and even in the SU. Back in the west Jones has a hard time to prove his allegations. His camera was taken, Duranty, who has a much better reputation calls him a liar and even the british government doesn´t want to risk the lucrative economic relations with the USSR. Holland focuses only partly on the famine and more on the role of stalinist propaganda and the gullability of western media and politics, that swept this catastrophe under the rug for decades. It´s a thrilling movie that doesn´t have the budget to show millions of dead and instead focuses on intimate an gruesome details. The luxury of the elites (western & russian) in Moscow are in stark contrast to the suffering of the peasants. "Mr Jones" brings us to the beginning of worldwide propaganda and fake news strategies where a journalists live is cheap and the people are just pawns in hands of big powers.