Film Preview: Mr. Jones (2020)

Page Revisions:

(May 17, 2020) Original

Release Date:

June 19, 2020

Synopsis:

From IMDb: “A Welsh journalist breaks the news in the western media of the famine in the Soviet Union in the early 1930s.”

Poster Rating: B- / C- / C / C+ / C+ / C

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Review: (#1) It has a lot of good design choices, but the excessive amount of white space on the design loses it some points. (#2) This silhouette design is very bland an uninspired. (#3) Not much to this design, which makes it rather dull to look at. (#4) I’m sure the free speech connotations of this poster fit into the themes of the film, but it’s an otherwise uninteresting design. (#5) There are a small number of good choices here, the color balance being one, but the lack of background details don’t make for a very exciting design. (#6) Too much vacant or snow-filled space to be compelling in any meaningful way.

Trailer Rating: C+

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Review: Going into the trailer knowing who Agnieska Holland, the film’s director, is helped make the film seem a little more observant. With scenes in the past filmed in black-and-white and scenes in the present in color, the visual aesthetic is pleasing, but the film’s premise is very loosely explored and it makes the viewer have to jump through mental hoops to understand all of it.

Oscar Prospects:

Agnieska Holland is one of the premier female filmmakers in the world. This English-language film about a young Welsh reporter seeking an audience with Russian leader Joseph Stalin to quiz him about the famine in his nation could have been a contender in German or Russian, but in English, it doesn’t have a lot of hope. That said, this year might be the one year where such a film could stand out among Oscar voters for recognition with so little other competition going on right now.