'The Railway Man': PTSD Pie . . .

Posted by Billy Wonka (A) on May 25, 2014 at 12:42:47

Firth plays a former English army officer and POW struggling with serious PTSD issues from his captivity. He meets socially with his group of fellow POW vets and mostly lives a life of solitude devoting himself to the study of trains and their timetables. He meets Kidman by chance and ends up wed to her where she becomes painfully aware of his problems and does what she can to support his troubles.

Firth and his fellow officers were put to work in Thailand on the rail line that would cross the Kwai. They did what they could to survive and cope and Firth built a radio receiver to hear words from home. Of course, he was caught doing this and was subjected to harassment and torture at the direction of the "interpreter". Decades later, Stellan Skarsgard prompts him to return to Thailand (they found the interpreter was alive) and extract justice/revenge.

Firth was a bit off his game this time and Kidman was just a tad too Stepford to be in the game at full drama. For what short time Skarsgard was on screen he overwhelmed the camera with great presence. He was the film's meteor followed by Jeremy Irvine's performance of the younger Firth.

Despite the story and character development, I still felt a bit unsatisfied with the overall film and its resulting end. The use of mixed time frames and flashbacks were overused and with Firth and Kidman being off the game I suppose it didn't come across as being as good as it could have been. The average audience member will score this high not from the craft of the film but from the story it represented of man facing off against his emotional wreckage and scars.

Based on a true story from the autobiographical work by Eric Lomax.

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