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No, not an account of the phone-tapping scandal that brought down Murdoch’s newspaper – this is Paul Greengrass’s latest film, with Tom Hanks as Captain Kyle Kidd.
It’s set five years after the end of the American Civil War, and Kidd, a “non-fiction storyteller”, travels from town to town sharing, well, the news of the world. Then he is tasked with delivering a 10 year old girl, taken in years ago by the Kiowa people, back to her relatives. Together they travel the unforgiving wilderness, both looking for a place they can call home.
News Of The World is coming to Netflix in the UK on 10 February; check out the trailer below.
It all looks beautiful, a small scale drama in a vast landscape. Hanks is joined by Johanna Leonberger, whose performance in System Crasher drew great acclaim.
Greengrass directed and co-wrote News Of The World, after previously working together with Hanks on Captain Phillips.
Here’s the full synopsis:
Five years after the end of the Civil War, Captain Jefferson Kyle Kidd (Hanks), a veteran of three wars, now moves from town to town as a non-fiction storyteller, sharing the news of presidents and queens, glorious feuds, devastating catastrophes, and gripping adventures from the far reaches of the globe.
In the plains of Texas, he crosses paths with Johanna (Helena Zengel, System Crasher), a 10-year-old taken in by the Kiowa people six years earlier and raised as one of their own. Johanna, hostile to a world she’s never experienced, is being returned to her biological aunt and uncle against her will.
Kidd agrees to deliver the child where the law says she belongs. As they travel hundreds of miles into the unforgiving wilderness, the two will face tremendous challenges of both human and natural forces as they search for a place that either can call home.
News of the World is based on the National Book Award finalist and best-selling novel by Paulette Jiles.