The Railway Man (Rialto and Metro) begins in 1980 when World War 2 is long over.
Director: Jonathan Teplitzky
Cast: Colin Firth, Nicole Kidman, Jeremy Irvine, Hiroyuki Sanada, Stellan Skarsgard, Sam Reid, Tanroh Ishida
Rating: (M)
4 stars + (out of 5)
When Patti (Nicole Kidman) meets charming Englishman Eric (Colin Firth) on a train and after a whirlwind romance marries him, it is a shock to discover that he suffers from night terrors and bouts of depression.
Eric was at the fall of Singapore and worked on the notorious Death Railway. He loves Patti but cannot communicate with her.
Things seem at an impasse when a fellow ex-prisoner of war Finlay (Stellan Skarsgard) gives Eric some riveting news. One of their former Japanese guards, Nagase (Hiroyuki Sanada), is working as a guide to the Burma Railway.
Eric has a special reason to hate Nagase and for years fantasised about tracking him down and making him pay for what he did.
The real Eric Lomax wrote a memoir called The Railway Man and if you have already read it, this film adaptation will probably annoy you, as it simplifies Eric's journey to acceptance of what happened to him by cutting out the therapy that Patti persuaded him to undertake and then goes over the top with his confrontation of Nagase.
However, Eric's interrogation of his former guard in the film is as therapeutic to the audience as it is to him.
Best thing: Both Colin Firth, as old Eric, and Jeremy Irvine, as young Eric, are stunning.
Worst thing: Why are film-makers constitutionally unable to trust the story they are telling and always amp up the drama?
See it with: A hankie to twist during the flashbacks and then to wipe away the tears at the end.
By Christine Powley.
