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| Version 1 | Version 2 |
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| The Railway Man – review | The Railway Man – review |
| (3 months later) | |
| Here is an intensely well-intentioned movie with an important story to tell, but also, unfortunately, with jarringly awkward moments and very serious casting problems. It is an adaptation of the 1995 memoir by Eric Lomax, the former Royal Signals officer who described his wartime experiences of being forced to work on the Burma railway after the fall of Singapore. He was tortured by Japanese soldiers, but travelled back to the far east decades later to track down his former torturer, Takashi Nagase, with whom he was reconciled. The friendship of these two men became a moving emblem of peace. | Here is an intensely well-intentioned movie with an important story to tell, but also, unfortunately, with jarringly awkward moments and very serious casting problems. It is an adaptation of the 1995 memoir by Eric Lomax, the former Royal Signals officer who described his wartime experiences of being forced to work on the Burma railway after the fall of Singapore. He was tortured by Japanese soldiers, but travelled back to the far east decades later to track down his former torturer, Takashi Nagase, with whom he was reconciled. The friendship of these two men became a moving emblem of peace. |
| Colin Firth plays the older Lomax, with Jeremy Irvine as the younger man. Firth does an honest job in the lead role; so does Irvine, who cleverly shows Lomax's mannerisms in embryo. Hiroyuki Sanada brings dignity and restraint to the role of Nagase, but Nicole Kidman looks frozen and bizarrely queenly as Patti, the woman with whom Lomax was to find love and companionship in civilian life (his previous marriage does not feature). And the Swedish actor Stellan Skarsgård is woefully and bafflingly miscast as Finlay, Lomax's old mate from the war. He makes no real attempt to do an English accent; it isn't easy to read how angry and agonised he is theoretically supposed to be. There are some powerful moments, particularly our first introduction to Lomax's post-traumatic stress disorder – his horrified and horrifying "flashback" to the workcamp while on his Scottish honeymoon. But a lot of it is uncertain and overdone, particularly Lomax's early depression. There is a lot of value in the film, but its structural and tonal difficulties mean that the target was missed. | Colin Firth plays the older Lomax, with Jeremy Irvine as the younger man. Firth does an honest job in the lead role; so does Irvine, who cleverly shows Lomax's mannerisms in embryo. Hiroyuki Sanada brings dignity and restraint to the role of Nagase, but Nicole Kidman looks frozen and bizarrely queenly as Patti, the woman with whom Lomax was to find love and companionship in civilian life (his previous marriage does not feature). And the Swedish actor Stellan Skarsgård is woefully and bafflingly miscast as Finlay, Lomax's old mate from the war. He makes no real attempt to do an English accent; it isn't easy to read how angry and agonised he is theoretically supposed to be. There are some powerful moments, particularly our first introduction to Lomax's post-traumatic stress disorder – his horrified and horrifying "flashback" to the workcamp while on his Scottish honeymoon. But a lot of it is uncertain and overdone, particularly Lomax's early depression. There is a lot of value in the film, but its structural and tonal difficulties mean that the target was missed. |
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