Fantastic thriller.
“Gareth Jones, a British “stringer” journalist, traveled to the Soviet Union in 1933 and uncovered the appalling truth behind the Soviet “utopia” inspiring George Orwell’s Animal Farm.”
In Mr. Jones, Actor James Norton plays a heroic “stringer” (an independent journalist not affiliated with any news organization) who took on Pulitzer prize-winning journalist, Walter Duranty, at the New York Times to reveal how Stalin starved millions of Ukrainians to prop up his communist regime. Jones, is a real-life Clark Kent, whose “superpower” is his unwavering dedication to the truth, no matter the cost, even if it means his own life. His nemesis Walter Duranty is brilliantly portrayed by Peter Sarsgaard.
Based on real events during the Holodomor where over six million died in 1933-4 by planned starvation. The film has ominous parallels to today as the Russian dictator Putin wages his unjust war against the people of Ukraine, and how establishment journalism seeks to distort the truth to promote government narratives on the tyrannical COVID lockdowns and mandates as brave independent journalists work to uncover the truth.
History does repeat itself, if not in concrete form, in abstract principle, for good or bad, if we do not induct the lessons it gives us.