News of the World

One of the highest honors bestowed upon iconic actors over the years has been to declare that one could listen to the actor read the phonebook. As far as I know, there's never been a film containing an actor reading the phonebook for our entertainment. There is, however, a new one featuring Tom Hanks reading the newspaper from town to town in the Old South. 

In the new Western News of the World, directed by Paul Greengrass, Hanks plays a Civil War veteran whose new profession involves him roaming around Texas reading the newspaper for a dime and bringing common folks the news of the world. It is not stated in the film if his audience is literate or not. They could have been among the twenty percent of the population who were illiterate at the time, or perhaps they could read but just liked hearing the news from a man we in the real world know as a two-time Oscar winner who has frequently been called "America's Dad." It's also a timely and comforting voice for audience in front of the screen, for one of the first news items he reads involves an epidemic of meningitis. Hanks, who was one of the first celebrities to catch COVID-19, calmly provides his audiences with just the facts.

Sometimes, however, the facts enrage his audience members. The news of the illness incites moans of concern and disappointment among his listeners. So, too, does news of the Grant administration's demands that Texas ratify the Thirteenth, Fourteen, and Fifteenth amendments before rejoining the Union. News of the World takes place in 1870, five years after the Civil War ended and seven years before Reconstruction ended and Jim Crow began. Not-so-subtle hints at this history present themselves as the camera focuses on the sole Black person in the audience as Tom Hanks' Captain Jefferson Kidd references the changes happening across the nation. 

The film, though it is discussing relevant topics like disease and fake news, does not seem interested in pointing out that Kidd fought on the side that tried to keep Black people enslaved. For all we know, he could have been a slaver. The consequence of this omission is that the film features essentially an all-white cast. The only people of color in the film randomly show up just to nod their head when Kidd speaks. Even the sole group of Native Americans who appear in the film, practically unseen in a terrible tempest of sand, give Kidd a horse and then stoically walk on by in the worst Hollywood way. 

The plot of News of the World is that while on his way to the next town, Kidd discovers a wagon party that was violently attacked. The only survivor is a young German immigrant played by Helena Zengel named Johanna Leonberger. She doesn't speak English and she basically doesn't speak German, either. She does speak Kiowa, however, the language of the Native Americans who raided her German family's farm and took her in. Being unable to communicate with her, Kidd finds he has no choice but to try and take her to her German aunt and uncle. 

Johanna, who Kidd later finds out goes by the name Cicada, is similar to the real-life tale of Herman Lehmann, the son of German immigrants who was captured by Apaches in 1870. Eventually running away from the Apaches, he received asylum with a Comanche tribe. However, Lehman was eventually reunited with his German family, but he had difficulty readjusting and didn't like his white family members. Cicada feels this way, too, running away from Kidd and disobeying him whenever she can, sometimes perhaps to annoy and humiliate him. This, plus their obvious communication barrier, makes their odyssey even more complicated.  

Zengel, the rising German star in her first Hollywood film, is terrific, but why couldn't the film (adapted from Paulette Jiles' novel) simply have the character be Native American? Given Hollywood's problem with diversity, this is disappointing. While child captives were not uncommon during this period, this story has already been told by Hollywood (The Searchers, Dances With Wolves, The Captives), and the point remains that this was a missed opportunity to add even a tiny amount of diversity. It's not surprising; the only somewhat diverse film Greengrass has directed features a cast mostly playing Somali pirates.  

That complaint aside, News of the World is fine. It works better as a tense thriller than an old-fashioned Western, with its best moments being those in which Kidd and Cicada have to outmaneuver a variety of evil men trying to harm them. Unfortunately, these moments are few and far between, and while the sequences are unpredictable, the film's overall trajectory more or less is not, resulting in the kind of film you'll likely forget you watched several months from now. 

It's not without its silly moments, either. Cicado picks up enough English to be able to ask something like "Captain, Johanna go?" This makes sense; children pick up languages considerably easier than adults do. Kidd, however, goes from learning the words for bird and buffalo to putting together relatively complex sentences in Kiowa like "you belong with me." 

Awkwardness aside, Hanks, in his first Western, shines. His acting is made better when he plays off Zengel, who apparently didn't know who he was when she was cast. As Kidd, Hanks plays a man who is an empathetic and calm individual who knows how to defuse volatile situations but will use force when necessary.  The way he reads the newspaper, as well, makes one wish there had been more of that in the film. Most people would, after all, probably watch Tom Hanks read an entire newspaper.