Journey's End
Directed by: Saul Dibb
Written by: Simon Reade - Based on the play by R.C. Sherriff
Starring: Sam Claflin, Paul Bettany, Asa Butterfield, Stephen Graham, Toby Jones, Tom Sturridge, Robert Glenister, Andy Gathergood
Drama/War - 107 min Reviewed by Charlie Juhl on 27 Mar 2018
Written by: Simon Reade - Based on the play by R.C. Sherriff
Starring: Sam Claflin, Paul Bettany, Asa Butterfield, Stephen Graham, Toby Jones, Tom Sturridge, Robert Glenister, Andy Gathergood
Drama/War - 107 min Reviewed by Charlie Juhl on 27 Mar 2018
The world reached the centenary of the end of the war to end all wars, the Great War, this year. Bookstores show off shelves of texts explaining why it happened, lessons learned, and the more ominous could it happen again alarmist screeds. However, cinema has largely ignored any in-depth dramas or action extravaganzas to mark the occasion; and no, Wonder Woman does not count. Saul Dibb’s adaptation of one of Britain’s most famous plays on the subject by R.C. Sherriff is excellent at showing the absurdity of trench warfare and the callous disregard of human lives by senior officers. Journey’s End is a study in tension and the dread of waiting; a slice of life mired in mud representing the war as a whole.
Recent films such as Frantz, The Water Diviner, and the sublime A Very Long Engagement are all set in the war’s aftermath as those left behind attempt to pick up the pieces and solve mysteries caused by the fog of war. The most famous of the World War I genre, All Quiet on the Western Front, Lawrence of Arabia, and Paths of Glory are more kinetic and visceral. Journey’s End occupies the no-man’s land between the dramatic aftermaths and the blood and guts fighting. It offers universal themes about wars and the men who fight them, how those men deal with pressure and fear, and then deflect the omnipresent certainty of death through jokes - anything but mention the elephant in the room of impending slaughter.
Recent films such as Frantz, The Water Diviner, and the sublime A Very Long Engagement are all set in the war’s aftermath as those left behind attempt to pick up the pieces and solve mysteries caused by the fog of war. The most famous of the World War I genre, All Quiet on the Western Front, Lawrence of Arabia, and Paths of Glory are more kinetic and visceral. Journey’s End occupies the no-man’s land between the dramatic aftermaths and the blood and guts fighting. It offers universal themes about wars and the men who fight them, how those men deal with pressure and fear, and then deflect the omnipresent certainty of death through jokes - anything but mention the elephant in the room of impending slaughter.
The majority of Journey’s End occurs in a single trench somewhere in northern France and specifically in the confined dugout of a Company Commander, Captain Stanhope (Sam Claflin, The Huntsman: Winter's War). It is the spring of 1918, four years into the war, and the only way Stanhope keeps the nightmares of what he has witnessed from overwhelming him are violent swigs of whiskey from a diminishing supply. The company’s Lieutenants and enlisted men sport well-earned thousand yard stares both disbelieving they are still alive and certain death is merely paused 60 yards away in the German trench. Captain Osborne (Paul Bettany, Captain America: Civil War) is the company’s rock and offers steady as she goes assurance. As a school headmaster, he reminds us of Goodbye Mr. Chips, but instead of being the teacher left behind to watch his students fill up the country’s war cemeteries, this instructor is on the front lines.
A break in the war’s monotony arrives in fresh-faced, just out of school Lieutenant Raleigh (Asa Butterfield, The Space Between Us). Raleigh can’t be more than 18 years-old and spurs an even deeper sense of depression in the men. You may think a young buck soldier with a can do attitude would offer a breath of fresh air amongst the grizzled and groused; however, the shell-shocked veterans may not be able to bear the sight of such youth and promise as another corpse littering the pock-marked battlefield. Raleigh knows Stanhope from school and specifically requests assignment to his unit. Raleigh's possible death may more than likely send the alcoholic Stanhope over the edge.
British students study Sherriff’s play in school. Sherriff was in the war writing letters home from the front which is why the material arrives with a level sense of truth and authenticity. Adapted by Simon Reade, who discovered a long-forgotten novelization of the stage play also written by Sherriff, updated the 90 year old story with modern language, but he keeps the dread. Director Saul Dibb immerses the audience into the mud with the soldiers. We only experience the most infinitesimal fraction of the atrocities of trench life, but the expected assault which keeps never coming and the claustrophobia seem to collapse the 100 years between us. Reade’s script also doesn’t take sides. Granted, we’re watching the British, but it does not come off as the Allies versus the Germans. Both sides experienced what we now diagnose as PTSD, what the behind the line Generals referred to as cowardice back then.
Cinematographer Laurie Rose elicits feelings of confinement and despair merely by tracking the soldiers’ muddy boots as they prepare to execute another ridiculous order from on high. Rose lights the dugout using only candles which lends the set design an extra level of credibility. Ipswich stands in for northern France in the trench scenes and reminds us ground wars in western Europe are best avoided in the winter months.
When war films follow a handful of characters we come to identify with and get to know very well, there is pressure on the filmmakers to take a left turn and sentimentalize the material; it makes it easier on the audience. However, it also does not reflect the truth. Sugar-coating what happened during the 1918 Spring Offensive would be a disservice to what happened. Therefore, Dibb and Rose limit our field of vision. We never see what the soldiers do not see. Dibb takes what could be a disadvantage with limited locations and uses it to the film’s credit with intense close-ups so he can show us how such impossible situations break the men forced to confront them.
When war films follow a handful of characters we come to identify with and get to know very well, there is pressure on the filmmakers to take a left turn and sentimentalize the material; it makes it easier on the audience. However, it also does not reflect the truth. Sugar-coating what happened during the 1918 Spring Offensive would be a disservice to what happened. Therefore, Dibb and Rose limit our field of vision. We never see what the soldiers do not see. Dibb takes what could be a disadvantage with limited locations and uses it to the film’s credit with intense close-ups so he can show us how such impossible situations break the men forced to confront them.
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