News of the Worldis not the movie you expect from directorPaul Greengrass. Greengrass made his name on handheld, documentary-style close-ups of a gritty and unforgiving world. He reinvented action movies for a time with hisBournefilms and his dramas likeBloody Sunday,United 93, and22 Julyare about real-life tragedies offering only the smallest glimmers of hope in the face of brutality. And yetNews of the Worldlargely leaves all that behind, instead opting for the sweeping vistas of the Western and an uplifting message about how the communal power of stories can bring us together in divided times. If22 Julywas a dire warning about the rise of far-right fanatics and the destruction they can wreak, thenNews of the Worldis a balm about the power of communication and a return to the homestead like an inverse of 1956’sThe Searchers. Anchored by the innate decency thatTom Hanksbrings to the majority of his performances,News of the Worldis a comforting balm from a director who usually avoids such warmth in his pictures.
Set in 1870 in South Texas, the film follows Captain Jefferson Kyle Kidd (Hanks), who formerly served in the Confederate army, and now goes town-to-town reading newspapers for audiences like a proto-anchorman. Kidd, who hasn’t been home in five years to his wife, comes across a lynched man and a scared young girl, Johanna (Helena Zengel). Johanna was being escorted to Indian Affairs as she had previously been captured and raised among the Kiowa when her family was slaughtered serveral years prior. She speaks no English, and wants to get back to the Kiowa, but the Indian Affairs agent will be gone for three months. After Johanna makes an escape attempt into the wilderness, Kidd knows the only way to protect her is to get her to her aunt and uncle 400 miles away. Kidd sets out on the treacherous journey with the young girl and the two begin to bond on their odyssey across Texas.
Once Kidd and Johanna get on their journey,News of the Worldis a bit of an episodic affair as the two face various dangers along the path. There are kidnappers who want to use Johanna for profit as well as more benign elements like steep cliffs and loose wagon wheels. But the centerpiece of the movie is where Kidd is forced to reading the “news” for a self-aggrandizing leader of a buffalo tanning business in Erath. The leader demands that Kidd read from Erath’s paper, which is little more than drawings and captions showing how the man conquered the buffalo and brought prosperity to the people. It is propaganda and “fake news”. Kidd rallies the crowd to have real news read to them and tells a story about how miners banded together and saved their community despite the cruelty and indifference of the mine owner. By telling a story that was real and beyond their community, Kidd inspires the people.
It’s a nice little fable embedded in a larger narrative about the importance and power of communication. The central relationship in the film—Kidd and Johanna—is about a man whose job it is to communicate to the masses being stuck alongside a young girl who literally does not understand him. In that situation where words fail, what is left? For Greengrass, it is action that preserves love and devotion. Throughout this journey, Kidd must work to protect Johanna even though he’s tried to leave family behind feeling like he didn’t deserve such peace after the brutality of the Civil War. Instead, family finds him as he unintentionally forges a bond with the young girl and discovers that redemption is more than just reading the news in small towns.
This kind of warmth translates well with Greengrass largely discarding his chaotic, handheld approach for lush, gorgeous vistas that make you want to get lost in the Western landscape. While previous Greengrass movies opt for a more claustrophobic and immediate feel,News of the Worldinstead allows us to luxuriate in the open air. Even in its tense moments, there’s a love for this setting that shows the genre is very much alive even while it’s rarely visited. For Greengrass,News of the Worldshows that he can’t easily be defined as a certain kind of filmmaker, and it makes me excited for what he’ll do next.
But I don’t thinkNews of the Worldwould work half as well as it does without Hanks. I think because he’s been around for so long and because his everyman personality is so cemented that we kind of take Tom Hanks for granted. Sure, we’ll sit up and take notice if he plays an icon like Mister Rodgers, but this is Hanks in his first Western and he’s as good in this as he is in anything because you buy his inherent decency. If Tom Hanks came to your door and said, “I will escort your child across 400 miles of rugged, dangerous terrain,” you’d immediately go, “You’ve got it, Tom Hanks. Just let me get her coat.” I doubt Kidd will go down as one of Hanks’ most beloved roles, and yet it typifies what makes him such an appealing and enduring presence in cinema.
Some will find this movie too simplistic and earnest to be worth caring about. But a film about the importance of communication shouldn’t eschew a direct message about restoring family, community, and trust. Greengrass has witnessed the same chaos we’ve seen these past four years, and22 Julywas a response to that chaos that looked at the worst humanity had to offer and tried to find a way forward.News of the Worldis a movie that accepts how divided we are, and seeks to find a path towards healing, not a macro level, but for the individual and to show that we have not been so destroyed that we cannot rebuild.
Rating: B+
News of the Worldopens on December 25th.
