James Norton as Gareth Jones in Mr Jones. Photo courtesy of Samuel Goldwyn Films
In the early ’30s, a young Welsh journalist named Jones uncovers a secret famine in Stalin’s Soviet Union, a revelation that helps inspire George Orwell’s “Animal Farm.” The fact-based Mr Jones is a gripping biographical historical political thriller about the little-remembered courageous Welsh journalist Gareth Jones (James Norton), but in a way, it is also a haunting tale of the critical importance of independent investigative journalists committed to truth.
Acclaimed Polish director Agnieszka Holland helms the English-language Mr Jones, a powerful portrait of courage in truth-telling, inspired by the real-life Welsh journalist Gareth Jones. The drama features a script by Andrea Chalupa and co-stars Peter Sargaard. Interestingly, this film is a reversal of the usual pattern of a men making a film about a courageous woman. Director Holland puts a spotlight on the now little-known Gareth Jones,...
In the early ’30s, a young Welsh journalist named Jones uncovers a secret famine in Stalin’s Soviet Union, a revelation that helps inspire George Orwell’s “Animal Farm.” The fact-based Mr Jones is a gripping biographical historical political thriller about the little-remembered courageous Welsh journalist Gareth Jones (James Norton), but in a way, it is also a haunting tale of the critical importance of independent investigative journalists committed to truth.
Acclaimed Polish director Agnieszka Holland helms the English-language Mr Jones, a powerful portrait of courage in truth-telling, inspired by the real-life Welsh journalist Gareth Jones. The drama features a script by Andrea Chalupa and co-stars Peter Sargaard. Interestingly, this film is a reversal of the usual pattern of a men making a film about a courageous woman. Director Holland puts a spotlight on the now little-known Gareth Jones,...
- 6/25/2020
- by Cate Marquis
- WeAreMovieGeeks.com
A good idea for a biopic doesn’t always find its ideal reflection on screen. Look what happened to Leonardo DiCaprio’s J. Edgar (as in Hoover), Hilary Swank’s Amelia (as in Earhart) and Colin Farrell’s Alexander (as in the Great). To that list of stymied ambition, add Mr. Jones, as in Gareth Jones (James Norton), the Welsh journalist whose exposé of Soviet atrocities leading up to World War II pissed off so many higher-ups that he never lived to see the age of 30.
On the surface, director...
On the surface, director...
- 6/19/2020
- by Peter Travers
- Rollingstone.com
On June 19, 1865, slavery was abolished in Texas, two years after the Emancipation Proclamation. It is a benchmark in Black history and is more timely now than ever as it is a day to celebrate and champion Black voices. That said, it is a good day for the debut of Channing Godfrey Peoples’ Miss Juneteenth, a film that spotlights the staple pageant associated with the day.
Directed and written by Texas native Peoples, Miss Juneteenth made its world premiere at Sundance earlier this year. The film stars Nicole Beharie, Alexis Chikaeze and Kendrick Sampson and follows Turquoise Jones (Beharie), a former beauty queen turned hard-working single mom that is preparing her rebellious teenage daughter Kai (Chikaeze) for the annual Miss Juneteenth pageant, hoping to keep her from repeating the same mistakes in life that she made.
“I grew up with Juneteenth so it was just second nature to me,” said Peoples told Deadline at Sundance.
Directed and written by Texas native Peoples, Miss Juneteenth made its world premiere at Sundance earlier this year. The film stars Nicole Beharie, Alexis Chikaeze and Kendrick Sampson and follows Turquoise Jones (Beharie), a former beauty queen turned hard-working single mom that is preparing her rebellious teenage daughter Kai (Chikaeze) for the annual Miss Juneteenth pageant, hoping to keep her from repeating the same mistakes in life that she made.
“I grew up with Juneteenth so it was just second nature to me,” said Peoples told Deadline at Sundance.
- 6/19/2020
- by Dino-Ray Ramos
- Deadline Film + TV
Mr. Jones Samuel Goldwyn Films Reviewed for Shockya.com & BigAppleReviews.net linked from Rotten Tomatoes by: Harvey Karten Director: Agnieszka Holland Screenwriter: Andrea Chalupa Cast: James Norton, Vanessa Kirby, Peter Sarsgaard, Joseph Mawle, Kenneth Cranham, Krzysztof Pieczynski, Celyn Jones, Patricia Volny Screened at: Critics’ link, NYC, 3/7/20 Opens: June 19, “Mr. Jones” should be required viewing […]
The post Mr. Jones Movie Review appeared first on Shockya.com.
The post Mr. Jones Movie Review appeared first on Shockya.com.
- 6/14/2020
- by Harvey Karten
- ShockYa
There’s a lot going on in the historical drama Mr. Jones, that’s for sure. Unfortunately, too little of what happens is of limited interest, at least in the manner being depicted. What should be a troubling, urgent, and deeply upsetting tale instead comes off fairly rote and uninspiring. The material is there, it just never comes across in a particularly cinematic way. Additionally, the film does an incredibly frustrating thing in detailing some of its most interesting information during a title card at the end. That sealed the deal and prevented me from giving it even a mild recommendation. Now available On Demand, it seems like it’s destined to be quickly forgotten about. The movie is a biographical/historical drama, taking place in the days before the second World War would begin. Ambitious journalist Gareth Jones (James Norton) has traveled from the United Kingdom to Moscow, chasing a story.
- 4/5/2020
- by Joey Magidson
- Hollywoodnews.com
Samuel Goldwyn Films has taken North American rights to Agnieszka Holland’s “Mr. Jones.” The period thriller debuted in competition at the Berlin Film Festival in February.
Set on the eve of World War II, “Mr. Jones” stars James Norton as Gareth Jones, an ambitious young journalist who travels to Moscow to uncover the truth behind the Soviet propaganda machine. There he receives a tip, about a deadly famine in Ukraine, that could expose an international conspiracy and cost him his life. Vanessa Kirby and Peter Sarsgaard co-star.
“‘Mr. Jones’ is a masterful historical thriller which transported me to a time and place seldom seen on the screen,” said Peter Goldwyn, who negotiated the deal with sales company WestEnd Films on behalf of Samuel Goldwyn Films and Endeavor Content. “The film tells of a past that eerily echoes the present.”
Written by Andrea Chalupa, the film was produced by Poland...
Set on the eve of World War II, “Mr. Jones” stars James Norton as Gareth Jones, an ambitious young journalist who travels to Moscow to uncover the truth behind the Soviet propaganda machine. There he receives a tip, about a deadly famine in Ukraine, that could expose an international conspiracy and cost him his life. Vanessa Kirby and Peter Sarsgaard co-star.
“‘Mr. Jones’ is a masterful historical thriller which transported me to a time and place seldom seen on the screen,” said Peter Goldwyn, who negotiated the deal with sales company WestEnd Films on behalf of Samuel Goldwyn Films and Endeavor Content. “The film tells of a past that eerily echoes the present.”
Written by Andrea Chalupa, the film was produced by Poland...
- 8/22/2019
- by Robert Mitchell
- Variety Film + TV
Film premiered in competition at this year’s Berlinale.
Agnieszka Holland’s Mr Jones, her drama starring James Norton and Vanessa Kirby, has had its North American rights bought by Samuel Goldwyn Films.
The film premiered at the Berlinale this year in competition. Peter Sarsgaard also stars in the feature, which follows an ambitious young journalist (Norton) who travels to Moscow to uncover the truth behind the propaganda machine pushed by Stalin’s Soviet Union.
London-based sales agent WestEnd Films handles world sales and struck the deal alongside Endeavor Content, which co-represented North America on the title.
WestEnd has also...
Agnieszka Holland’s Mr Jones, her drama starring James Norton and Vanessa Kirby, has had its North American rights bought by Samuel Goldwyn Films.
The film premiered at the Berlinale this year in competition. Peter Sarsgaard also stars in the feature, which follows an ambitious young journalist (Norton) who travels to Moscow to uncover the truth behind the propaganda machine pushed by Stalin’s Soviet Union.
London-based sales agent WestEnd Films handles world sales and struck the deal alongside Endeavor Content, which co-represented North America on the title.
WestEnd has also...
- 8/22/2019
- by Tom Grater
- ScreenDaily
It can be a terrible burden to be able to see the future, particularly when the rest of the world seems blind to the present. Seldom has that fact been more sobering than it is in Agnieszka Holland’s urgent but disjointed “Mr. Jones,” the true (and somewhat unknown) story of a young man who was cursed with the ability to see what was coming next, as well as the determination to recognize the full horror of what was already there.
An ill-conceived prologue notwithstanding, Holland’s well-intentioned and characteristically unsentimental thriller begins in a musty corner of 1933, where a wide-eyed young Welsh journalist named Gareth Jones is convinced that Adolf Hitler poses a serious threat to the rest of the world. Played by an earnest James Norton (who offsets his natural good looks with a pronounced streak of “do the right thing” dorkiness), Jones is laughed off by the other,...
An ill-conceived prologue notwithstanding, Holland’s well-intentioned and characteristically unsentimental thriller begins in a musty corner of 1933, where a wide-eyed young Welsh journalist named Gareth Jones is convinced that Adolf Hitler poses a serious threat to the rest of the world. Played by an earnest James Norton (who offsets his natural good looks with a pronounced streak of “do the right thing” dorkiness), Jones is laughed off by the other,...
- 2/10/2019
- by David Ehrlich
- Indiewire
The story of Gareth Jones is such a fascinating one, built on such intrepid, one-man-against-the-system ideals, that it’s a wonder it hasn’t been filmed into oblivion over the past 80 years. A young Welsh journalist who blew the first public whistle on the Holodomor — the man-made famine of 1932-33 in Soviet Ukraine — only to be broadly discredited by his professional peers and murdered before his 30th birthday, he was the quintessential man who knew too much. “Mr. Jones,” Agnieszka Holland’s suitably absorbing but somewhat stuffy biopic, knows too much in a different sense: neophyte screenwriter Andrea Chalupa’s plainly well-researched script is at such pains to put all its fact-finding on the screen that what should be an urgent political thriller proceeds at a bit of a trudge, its human dimensions not always clear in the ultra-low lighting.
A far stricter edit of this baggy 140-minute film would...
A far stricter edit of this baggy 140-minute film would...
- 2/10/2019
- by Guy Lodge
- Variety Film + TV
In Berlin with her latest film, Academy Award nominee Agnieszka Holland gave an impassioned defense of a free press and warned that societies must remain vigilant against growing threats to democracy around the world.
At a press conference Sunday to promote “Mr. Jones,” which world premieres Sunday in competition at the Berlin Film Festival, the Polish director said freedom was “overrated” when people “can choose the darkness instead of the light.”
“Freedom is very difficult,” she said. “It means making choices. It means also to be defeated. It means also to make the mistakes.”
“Mr. Jones” is based on the true story of Welsh journalist Gareth Jones, who struggled to bring to light the story of the Ukrainian famine wrought by the brutal policies of Joseph Stalin. The film stars James Norton, Vanessa Kirby and Peter Sarsgaard.
Holland called it her “moral duty” to shine a spotlight on what she...
At a press conference Sunday to promote “Mr. Jones,” which world premieres Sunday in competition at the Berlin Film Festival, the Polish director said freedom was “overrated” when people “can choose the darkness instead of the light.”
“Freedom is very difficult,” she said. “It means making choices. It means also to be defeated. It means also to make the mistakes.”
“Mr. Jones” is based on the true story of Welsh journalist Gareth Jones, who struggled to bring to light the story of the Ukrainian famine wrought by the brutal policies of Joseph Stalin. The film stars James Norton, Vanessa Kirby and Peter Sarsgaard.
Holland called it her “moral duty” to shine a spotlight on what she...
- 2/10/2019
- by Christopher Vourlias
- Variety Film + TV
Variety has been given exclusive access to first-look footage from Academy Award nominee Agnieszka Holland’s “Mr. Jones,” which world premieres in Official Competition at the Berlin Film Festival. The film stars James Norton, Vanessa Kirby and Peter Sarsgaard.
“Mr. Jones” tells the little-known story of Gareth Jones, an ambitious young Welsh journalist who travelled to the Soviet Union in 1933, and discovered the appalling reality behind the myth of a communist “utopia.” What started out as a regular news investigation, soon turned into a life-or-death quest to uncover the truth about a government-induced famine in Ukraine. His efforts are frustrated not just by Soviet censors but other Western journalists who enjoy the patronage of Stalin’s regime, most notably Walter Duranty, the Moscow bureau chief of the New York Times. Jones’ story helped inspire George Orwell’s allegorical dystopian novel “Animal Farm.”
In a statement, Holland said: “We wanted to...
“Mr. Jones” tells the little-known story of Gareth Jones, an ambitious young Welsh journalist who travelled to the Soviet Union in 1933, and discovered the appalling reality behind the myth of a communist “utopia.” What started out as a regular news investigation, soon turned into a life-or-death quest to uncover the truth about a government-induced famine in Ukraine. His efforts are frustrated not just by Soviet censors but other Western journalists who enjoy the patronage of Stalin’s regime, most notably Walter Duranty, the Moscow bureau chief of the New York Times. Jones’ story helped inspire George Orwell’s allegorical dystopian novel “Animal Farm.”
In a statement, Holland said: “We wanted to...
- 1/28/2019
- by Leo Barraclough
- Variety Film + TV
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