Film
Journey’s End
- Director
- Saul Dibb
- Certificate
- 12A
- Running Time
- 108 mins
Saul Dibb, Brit director of The Duchess and Suite Française, does WWI with an intense trench drama that is certain to invite comparisons with Dunkirk. If the title seems familiar, that’s because it’s an adaptation of R.C. Sherriff’s oft-staged (and filmed, initially by James Whale) 1928 play.
Although he makes use of all the modern filmmaking technology at his disposal, Dibb has resisted the temptation to tinker or impose a modern perspective. He’s also recruited a fine young cast, with Hunger Games star Sam Clafin as Captain Stanhope – an officer who’s become a mentally disintegrating alcoholic after four years in the trenches of northern France – and Asa Butterfield as his naïve, hero-worshipping young prospective brother-in-law, who’s just turned up fresh from basic training. The rest of the cast includes such old hands as Paul Bettany, Stephen Graham and Toby Jones. That the film is released in the centenary year of the Great War’s end will do its commercial prospects no harm whatsoever. Go here for our full review.
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