Journey's End (2017)

Seen loads of movies about WW1. This one was more real, more intense, horrifying, not glorifying, more personal than all the others

Fmovies: For those who think The Great War (or WWI) is out of contact, that those involved are all gone as are many of their children, think again. It's now 100 years since it ended but my Grandfather fought in it & I'm only in my late 30s.

He died when I was three but I do have two vague memories of him. One where he was lifting me up & the other where I was stood holding onto his leg as he sat. The latter of these two memories is more vivid because I recall feeling a sunken hole in his leg. Years later I found out that this hole was due to an injury he sustained during the war - he was blown up. He survived but his commanding officer (who was stood next to him) died.

My grandfather lay unattended for over a day. When he was eventually found he was close to death. Two German POWs carried the stretcher that took him to safety with my Grandfather occasionally having to raise his arm to show life in order to prevent them dumping him onto a corpse pile.

After the war he became a miner & it was this profession that had its hands on his eventual death (lungs).

This film concentrates on the officer-class (as do the majority of films about The Great War). Nevertheless, I understand this, for there is no Hollywood glamour in being working class rank & file, but, it was the rank & file who truly bore the brunt of trench warfare & I wish their stories were truthfully told - It is no coincidence that a huge surge in the Labour/socialist movement followed WWI. Working class bitterness towards the elite classes after this war was warranted & it's a disgrace that contemporary upper class historians (Dan Snow) attempt to dilute elite class responsibility for the horrors of WWI.

The actors in this film do a good job. The story runs smoothly & is accessible.

The actors

Decided to watch this with my 13 year old son as he's learning about WW1 at school and I thought this may give him an insight as to how trench warfare would have felt for the men involved. He is a massive fan of all action cinema/TV from LOTR to GOT, and although I was completely involved in the film and felt the despair of every man on the front line, I feared that Zach might be disinterested as it was far more atmospheric than all out action. When we discussed certain aspect during the film he told me that his heart rate had been at about 120 bpm all the way through and that he was loving it. Tells you everything you need to know about this film. As stated before, this is not a war film, but a film about war and we loved it.

Journey's End fmovies. "Journey's End" makes for a claustrophobic and tense movie experience. It's quite clearly a film adaptation of a stage play, but it's a surprise (to me at least) that the stage play - penned by R.C. Sherriff - dates back to 1928 and was first performed in London by a young Laurence Olivier.

You might say "A filmed stage play? Hm... I'm not sure about that". But actually, it works really well, adding brilliantly to the claustrophobic nature of the piece but - more importantly - largely eschewing "action scenes" to focus in on the dramatic relationships between the officers in their dugout and the men in the trenches above.

The plot is a simple one. Set in the spring of 1918 (arguably, the movie might have been even more powerful had its release been delayed by about 6 weeks), Captain Stanhope (Sam Claflin, "Me Before You", "Their Finest") leads a company of men marching into position in a trench near Saint-Quentin, Aisne for a six-day tour of duty. Given they are one of 1,800 such companies on the Western Front, it's unfortunately their bad luck that the German's "spring offensive" is forecast to happen imminently. As Stanhope's CO (the excellent Robert Glennister, "Live by Night", TV's "Hustle") makes clear, and as the film's title might also suggest, this is forecast to be a one-way trip.

With immaculate timing, squeaky-keen young recruit Lieutenant Raleigh (Asa Butterfield, "Hugo") uses his brass-connections to join the company, since he knows Stanhope from his schooldays. Indeed, Stanhope is his sister's beau. But Raleigh soon discovers that Stanhope is no longer the 'affable chap' he was....

Butterfield is marvelously cast as the perky new recruit, all wide-eyed and eager on arrival but completely ill-equipped for what he is to see and experience in a confined society being stretched beyond breaking point. Claflin as well is superb, and must have spent hours in front of a mirror trying to perfect his haunted expression. The range of emotions he delivers through those eyes is just extraordinary. Finally rounding out the star-turns of the officers are Paul Bettany ("Avengers: Age of Ultron") as the avuncular Osborne and Tom Sturridge ("Far From The Madding Crowd") as the shell-shocked and useless Hibbert.

Those of you familiar with the splendid "Black Adder Goes Forth" will know the comic role played by Tony Robinson as Baldrick with his strange culinary concoctions. In this film Toby Jones ("Atomic Blonde", "Dad's Army") fills that role and similarly has some comic lines to add - just a touch of - much needed light-relief to the tension.

The film has a necessarily melancholic feel, but (for me) it's rather over-egged by the sonorous cello score by Natalie Holt and Hildur Gudnadóttir. (Again, reflecting our different tastes, I'll point out that my wife found the music fitting and not as annoying and intrusive as I did).

Director Sean Dibb (Suite Française) has here delivered a tense and very well-executed movie that ably demonstrates the British "stiff upper lip" in public - and the weak whiskey-soaked psychosis in private - of men under the most unbearable stress imaginable. Recommended... but go expecting something that's more drama than World War One 'action'.

(For the full graphical review, please visit bob-the-movie-man.com. Thanks.)

This is definitely one of the best war movies I have ever seen. No Rambo actions in this one. The title really depicts what the movies is all about A Journey's End. The brutality of war. Good men die like that . In times of war orders are orders. It is sad. I wonder all this potential gone to waste . Over 60 million people died in world wars. Countries destroyed. I wonder how the world would have been liked if only ... I recommend you see this movie with high quality video . The sound is amazing& the cinematic . The acting is superb . If you think that war is exciting . Think again . You ought to see it. Deserves a better rating.

Have always loved RC Sherriff's play 'Journey's End' ever since studying it twice in secondary school in English when studying World War I literature. 'Journey's End' is fascinating and powerful enough when reading it, it is even more so when talking about and analysing it when all the different perspectives, themes, conflicts and distinctions are picked up on.

This 2017 film adaptation lived up to my already high expectations and more. To me, it's one of 2017's (released this year here) best and most emotional films but sadly it is likely to go under-appreciated, due to being released very close to the Oscars/Academy Awards ceremony, not yet having a worldwide release (so far only restricted to three countries) and being alongside films that by type audiences are more likely to go and see. That's my feeling at the moment and here's to hoping in the future it will be proved wrong, because it does deserve much better than that. Not just because it is a wonderful film but also that as said giving a film that does an important subject justice and so far get a limited release in a centenary year is something of a disrespect.

'Journey's End' is very successful at capturing the spirit of Sherriff's play in themes and characterisation, with all the different varied perspectives, varied class distinctions and characters that easily could have been just world war clichés rightly given the complexity they have in the play. It is equally successful in not being stage bound or too stagy, a danger with play to film adaptations and a trap fallen into numerous times, capturing the tense claustrophobia of the setting while opening out the action that it feels cinematic without getting overblown.

There is a real sense of innocence, courageousness, conflict and tragedy, with the powers of loyalty and friendship being rays of hope in a hopeless situation. 'Journey's End' is an emotionally complex play and needs an emotionally complex film with all those themes present, something that we get here. This is not a film to be dismissed for having a familiar message, considering the different perspectives and varied characterisations (shell-shocked and conflicted captain, loyal and voice of reason "uncle" figure, the somewhat naïve youth, the coward, the comic relief) there is so much more to 'Journey's End' than just saying that "war is hell", far too simplistic a description for what it's trying to say.

On an emotional level, 'Journey's End' is tremendously powerful, making its points without being heavy-handed, being incredibly heartfelt that you really care for the characters' fates and find it very difficult to hold back tears and making one really appreciate the bravery of those who fought and not to forget them or take them for granted.

Visually, 'Journey's End' is very well made. Evocative and handsome in design, bleakly atmospheric in how things are lit and colour scheme and there is a suitably claustrophobic dynamic to the camera work that opens up the action and captures the full horrors of this period. The music is suitably urgent and melancholic, didn't find it that intrusive personally.

Dialogue wrenches the gut, breaks the heart and provokes thought, and brings out every ounce of what makes the characters more than just world war clichés. Can't fault the continually compelling and powerful storytelling or the direction.

'Journey'