Review of 'News of the World'

 

Nice enough archly liberal western yarn with Tom Hanks as a bloke that goes from town to town reading the highlights from newspapers to assembled audiences in 1870s Texas, who finds a young girl child and is lumbered with returning her to her only living relatives. She's been abducted from her German settler family by Kiowa native Americans and seems to speak only Kiowa, and the home she wants to get back to is the Kiowa. But he's taking her to a German uncle and aunt who live near Castroville.

It's set against a background of the South during Reconstruction, though that's not really dwelt upon. Indeed, given how little most contemporary Americans know about that period there might have been a little more, especially now when the Confederate re-enactors seem to be such a powerful political force. There are some nods in that direction - early on the protagonist finds the body of a Black man who has been lynched by white supremacists, but after that Black characters mainly appear in a few crowd scenes. And there are few references to the relations between native Americans and settlers, but again that's not really the point of the story.

Still, it was a properly made film with nice acting and cinematography.

Watched on Netflix.