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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.