Thursday 21 March 2019

Film: 'A Private War'

Intense, often gruelling, depiction of the final few years of Sunday Times war correspondent Marie Colvin who's ever brushing aside advice not to go to certain scenes of conflict as being too risky. She travels to a number of world hot spots, starting in Sri Lanka 2001 (where she loses an eye) then to Iraq, Libya and finally Syria where she was killed in 2011. Some of you will recall the mention on news programmes. There are many bloody scenes, as you might imagine, yet I did find there an unexpected distance between the showing of such horrible, violent events and my reaction to them. I didn't feel drawn in and being involved as much as I felt the story merited. 

Oscar-nominated Rosamund Pike throws entire conviction into playing the ill-fated, superficially unlikeable journalist, showing her as having problems with drink, with relationships, and with her mental health, but feeling her mission is to tell the world the truth of what was happening to innocent civilians contrasting with the propaganda of Islamic terrorists as well as that of Gaddafi, and Assad.   
Jamie Dornan is her intrepid, equally committed,  Irish photographer and companion on all her missions. 
Tom Hollander is the newspaper editor and, also in a few London scenes to where she returns every so often, is her final love interest in the person of a little-used Stanley Tucci.

 This is Matthew Heineman's first feature length film after some TV work. I think it's a fair enough workaday product but one of no particular distinction. I can't see myself remembering it for as long as I should, considering the horrors of the well-documented background to a story which needs telling. Nevertheless, if it raises the topic to a general people's awareness it will have done its job..........6.

 (IMDb...........6.7 / Rott. Toms...........6.4 )


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6 comments:

  1. John Going Gently21 March 2019 at 15:17

    I like Pike
    ( I adored her in Pride and prejudice ) but although I earmarked this movie to see
    I couldn't quite get my arse into get to see it

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    1. Raybeard21 March 2019 at 21:49

      She was very good indeed in this, JayGee, but aside from her performance, and that of the attractively bear-like Jamie Dornan, I did feel there was an element missing from the film which would have made it more compelling.

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  2. Rachel Phillips21 March 2019 at 23:06

    I saw the trailer several times but didn't want to see it. I read your review and it sounds like I sort of felt the film would be. I am surprised you gave it 6. I thought I was going to see 5 at most when I got to the end.

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    1. Raybeard22 March 2019 at 00:55

      I was actually teetering on giving it a 5.5 or possibly a but less, Rachel, but gave in to recognising the formidable performance of Pike - playing the role as being rather sloppy and unendearing when the easy way would have been to have made Colvin into a sympathetic heroine. But apart from that in its favour (perhaps swayed a little by her Oscar nomination) there was little to commend it.

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  3. Ur-spo25 March 2019 at 20:43

    I admire you 'courage' to see these sort of films. They bother me enough I won't go.

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    1. Raybeard26 March 2019 at 01:54

      This kind of film I'll drop by the wayside when my tally of films seen in a cinema reaches 5,000, which at current rate is likely to be within about 6 months time. Must say I'll feel some relief when I get there.

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