1/28/2021Movie Review "News of the World"

Rating:PG-13 Staring: Tom Hanks, Helena Zengel I haven’t seen an old time Western movie is a very long time. However, this isn’t your traditional Western with lots of gun fights and people chasing each other on horses. In fact, it’s a rather slow moving film but it is worth watching because of the relationship between the two leads: Tom Hanks and Helena Zengel. Set around 1870, in the plains of Texas, Hanks portrays, Kyle Kidd, a traveling news reader. During that period, many people couldn’t read and newspapers were scarce to find so some people made a living by moving from town to town to bring non-fictional news to the people in remote areas. During one of his trips, Hanks comes across 10-year old Johanna who had been taken in and raised by the Kiowa tribe when she was four and they raised her as their own. The child being taken to her aunt and uncle by the authorities against her will. Hanks agrees to take the child to her family and they travel hundreds of mile into the wilderness on their journey.

The movie does not glamorize this period of history. The West was a dirty and harsh place to live and the people were largely uneducated. Both Hanks and Zengel give very good performances. Zengel especially is very touching in the role of a vulnerable child. She also had to learn to speak the Kiowa language which is now almost a dead language. The real-life Kiowa woman who taught her said she learned it faster than any native Kiowa she had ever taught. News of The World is a story of trust and friendship between two people. It might not be the greatest film I ever saw, but it is definitely entertaining. Because of Covid the movie was not widely distributed in theaters when it was released in December of 2020. I saw it on Netflix and I think that is still the best place to view. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OMHcvYQH0Ls