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These days, news travels instantly. All you need to do is pull out your phone and check your favorite news app to see what’s going on in the world. But News of the World tells the story of a very different time—and a man who traveled through treacherous lands to share stories.
News of the World journeys through post-Civil-War Texas with Captain Jefferson Kidd (Tom Hanks), who makes a living traveling from town to town, reading the newspapers and sharing stories of the world outside their small communities. While traveling, he encounters a lost girl named Johanna (Helena Zengel) who’s without a home. After the Kiowa people killed her family years ago, they took her in—but she’s now being returned to an aunt and uncle who live hundreds of miles away. And Captain Kidd agrees to travel through the wilderness to help her find a new home.
News of the World isn’t the kind of film that you might expect from Paul Greengrass, the director of the Bourne movies. This isn’t another quick, shaky spy thriller. The action is less choppy and more deliberately paced—more in the old Western style. But it’s still a gripping adventure, built around characters that audiences will care about.
These two characters seem so very different—from the language they speak to the lifestyle they’re used to living. But despite their language barrier and their cultural differences, they’re more similar than they initially understand. They’re both lonely wanderers with no home and no family. And, along their dangerous journey, these two travelers begin to understand each other and care for each other—and they find their own ways to communicate with each other and learn from each other during their long hours on the open road.
You can’t help but fall in love with these characters. Hanks’s Captain Kidd has lived through battle and suffered great losses. Yet he still cares about people—and he loves nothing more than sharing meaningful, uplifting stories with the people who need to hear them. Johanna is wide-eyed and expressive—this poor, lost girl who’s already had to mourn two different families. They make an unlikely pair on their journey through dangerous territories—the aging veteran and the young girl—but they’re surprisingly smart and resourceful. And each new danger will have you holding your breath, silently cheering them on.
It may not be as fast-paced as the usual Paul Greengrass thriller, but News of the World is captivating in a very different way. The Wild West action may grab your attention, but these characters will grab your heart.
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