‘The Narrow Road to the Deep North’ Review: Jacob Elordi in POW Drama – Hollywood Reporter
Source: Hollywood Reporter
Subscribe for full access to The Hollywood Reporter
Subscribe for full access to The Hollywood Reporter
Adapted from the novel and co-starring Ciarán Hinds and Odessa Young, the five-part limited series examines the harrowing experiences of an Australian Army medical officer during World War II and four decades later.
Following Nitram and The Order, Justin Kurzel goes from strength to strength with his riveting first detour into episodic television, The Narrow Road to the Deep North. While a current of unflinching violence runs through the director’s work, seldom if ever has the blunt shock of bloodletting played in such haunting counterpart to the pathos of brutalized humanity as it does in this adaptation of Richard Flanagan’s 2014 Booker Prize-winning novel. There’s a lingering soulfulness here that feels new to Kurzel’s work, distilled in an intensely moving lead performance from Jacob Elordi.
Related Stories
Movies
‘Köln 75’ Review: John Magaro Hits the Right Notes in a Frustrating Music Drama That Marginalizes the Headliner
Movies
How Rising Star Julia Franz Richter Went From Nativity Plays to Starring in Two Berlinale Movies
Big, bold and strikingly cinematic, the limited series’ first two of five 45-minute episodes were presented as a special gala at the Berlin Film Festival ahead of its Australian premiere on Prime Video in April. Most other major markets will follow, though Sony has not yet closed a deal for U.S. rights. With Elordi’s star on the rise, that can only be a matter of time, even if the slangy vernacular of the wartime sections will require subtitles.
The Narrow Road to the Deep North
The Bottom Line
A powerful depiction of the trauma of survival.
Venue: Berlin Film Festival (Berlinale Special Gala)Airdate: Friday, April 18 (Prime Video, Australia)Cast: Jacob Elordi, Ciarán Hinds, Odessa Young, Olivia DeJonge, Simon Baker, Essie Davis, Dan Wyllie, Heather Mitchell, Shô Kasamatsu, Thomas Weatherall, William Lodder, Christian Byers, Eduard Geyl, Reagan Mannix, Sam Parsonson, Caelan McCarthy, David Howell, Taki Abe, Masa Yamaguchi, Charles AnDirector: Justin KurzelWriter: Shaun Grant, based on the novel by Richard Flanagan
Another recurring theme in Kurzel’s work represented here is the formation of a national Australian identity and the role played by traumatic episodes in the country’s history. The horrific experiences of prisoners of war forced by the Japanese to work as slave labor on the Thailand-Burma railroad during World War II is another painful chapter, given added resonance by the reluctance of many who served and were captured during that conflict to speak or write about it in the decades that followed.
Based on the first 90 minutes, The Narrow Road to the Deep North has potential to stand alongside films like Peter Weir’s Gallipoli and Bruce Beresford’s Breaker Morant as a nuanced and compassionate study of Australians at war.
Skillfully adapted by Kurzel’s frequent collaborator Shaun Grant, the drama benefits from the highly personal feel of the material. That was perhaps inevitable given that Flanagan’s inspiration for the novel came from his father’s experience as a survivor of what became known as “Death Railway,” on which Grant’s grandfather also worked as a POW. Kurzel’s grandfather also was a WWII veteran, one of the so-called “Rats of Tobruk,” the Australian-led division that defended the North African port city from siege by German and Italian forces.
Elordi plays Dorrigo Evans, a medical student who joins Australia’s Armed Forces and loses his first casualties as his company advances through Syria toward the frontline in 1941. The explosion that kills two soldiers is right in Kurzel’s visceral wheelhouse, as is the barbaric treatment of the captured troop two years later. Jammed into a sweltering train compartment like livestock and transported to Thailand, they are put to work by Japanese officers, clearing jungle and constructing track for the railway, which is to stretch for almost 260 miles.
Following the prologue in Syria, Grant’s script jumps between three different time periods, with the 1943 POW scenes providing the spine.
In 1940, Dorrigo is a handsome young transplant from rural Tasmania, with a steamy sexual connection to his girlfriend Ella (Olivia DeJonge), who comes from a wealthy Melbourne family. Her eagerness to marry prods him to propose, even if there’s a vague sense that he’s not ready.
Around the same time, he drives out to a country pub owned by his gregarious Uncle Keith (Simon Baker). Keith is absent when Dorrigo gets there, but he meets the woman his family has referred to as his uncle’s “too young” wife, Amy (Odessa Young). The flirty chemistry between them sets off instant sparks.
In 1989, Dorrigo (played with a brooding demeanor in his senior years by Cia
Read more: Click here