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Mr. Jones
UK theatrical release poster
Directed by Agnieszka Holland
Written by Andrea Chalupa
Produced by
Stanisław Dziedzic
Andrea Chalupa
Klaudia Śmieja-Rostworowska
Starring
James Norton
Vanessa Kirby
Peter Sarsgaard
Cinematography Tomasz Naumiuk
Edited by Michał Czarnecki [pl]
Music by Antoni Komasa-Łazarkiewicz
Signature Entertainment
(United Kingdom)
Release dates
10 February 2019 (Berlinale)
25 October 2019 (Poland)
28 November 2019 (Ukraine)
7 February 2020 (United
Kingdom)
Running time 141 minutes
Countries
Poland
Ukraine
United Kingdom
Languages
English
Ukrainian
Russian
Welsh
Box office $2.8 million
Mr. Jones (Mr Jones in the
United Kingdom; Polish: Obywatel Jones, lit. 'Citizen Jones'; Ukrainian: «Ціна
правди», romanized: Tsina pravdy, lit. 'The Price of Truth') is a 2019
biographical thriller film written and co-produced by Andrea Chalupa and
directed by Agnieszka Holland. It is based on the story of Welsh journalist
Gareth Jones, who uncovers the truth of the devastating famine (Holodomor) in
which millions died in the Ukrainian SSR, Soviet Union.
The film was selected to
compete for the Golden Bear at the 69th Berlin International Film Festival.
In 1933, Gareth Jones is an
ambitious young journalist, who has gained some renown for his interview with
Adolf Hitler. The son of an English teacher in the Welsh colony of Hughesovka
in Soviet Ukraine, Jones is troubled by the question of how Stalin's Soviet
Union can be having a spending spree, as the numbers do not add up. Jones works
as a political advisor to David Lloyd George, the former British prime
minister, but with funding limited owing to the economic difficulties, and
after failing to make his case in a critical meeting, he is made redundant.
Trading on his connections in
Britain and in Russia, Jones manages to obtain a Russian visa with the
intention of setting up an interview with Stalin. Upon arrival in Moscow, he
meets Eugene Lyons, a Russian-American journalist, who is with a party of British
engineers from Metropolitan-Vickers; they take him to a party at the home of
Walter Duranty and give him cryptic hints that the Soviets are not as
enlightened as they make out, and that Stalin's ability to pay for British
engineers or new factories may not rest on the famed efficiency of the
Ukrainian farms as they have claimed. He is also informed that journalists are
forbidden to venture outside of Moscow. Through a chance meeting with fellow
British journalist Ada Brooks—who is under close observation by the OGPU, the
Soviet secret police—he learns that his contact in Moscow was murdered by the
authorities while investigating the supposed Ukrainian agricultural revolution.
Armed with this information, Jones alters his documents to make him appear to be
still employed by Lloyd George and obtains an invitation to Ukraine by the
Soviet foreign minister Maxim Litvinov.
On the train journey south,
Jones takes advantage of a brief stop to leave his train and sneak onto another
train, which is taking starving peasant workers to Hughesovka—now renamed
Stalino. At Stalino, he finds that all of the grain shipments are being immediately
sent to Moscow, but he is labelled a foreign spy and forced to flee into the
woods. After escaping, he witnesses almost abandoned villages, with the
remaining peasants dying in their own homes. After travelling for several days,
he is told by locals that the famine has been started deliberately by Moscow.
He is then caught by the OGPU.
Taken to a Soviet prison,
Jones briefly encounters the engineers whom he met in Moscow, who have now also
been accused of espionage. Under interrogation, he is told that he will be sent
back to London without charges, with an expectation that he will repeat to the
press the story the Soviets wish to be heard: that Ukraine is the breadbasket
of the USSR and any stories of a famine are rumours. Only if he does this, will
the Russians agree to release the engineers.
Back in London, his publisher
introduces him to George Orwell, who persuades Jones to tell the truth for the
greater good. In response to Jones's claims, Duranty—who through bribery is
using his position to act as a propaganda mouthpiece for Stalin—mobilises his
contacts to rebut any stories of famine in Ukraine. Litvinov similarly puts
pressure on Lloyd George to force Jones to retract his claims. He refuses, but
becomes a pariah as the public turns on him. Out of desperation, he returns to
his father's home in Wales, but later hears that the American media mogul
William Randolph Hearst is at a nearby stately home that he owns. Jones manages
to reach him and persuades him to use his publications to revive the
accusations of induced famine. The extra publicity revives public belief in the
truth of the Holodomor.
The film ends by recording
that Jones died two years later while reporting in Inner Mongolia. Travelling
with a fellow journalist who was also a member of the Comintern, he was
kidnapped by bandits and executed.
