He reveals things to Patti and the audience about Lomax’s past and feels more like a device than a convincing character. The performances in Railway Man are fine, but we spend so little time getting to know the adult Eric and Patricia that it’s tough to connect to their relationship. The scenes between Kidman and Skarsgards characters. Less successful is Swedish actor Stellan Skarsgaard as the middle-aged Lomax’s pal, Finlay, a veteran from the same horrors who has also settled in the area. The Railway Man is based on a true story and, even though this movie is flawed, is impactful in many ways. The Lomax we first meet is 60-ish and rumpled, a budding codger and practiced train enthusiast. He’s immensely sympathetic – clever and courageous – and Irvine’s performance helps overcomes any sense that we’re watching two separate stories unfold. As The Railway Man shows, the culture of silence runs deep. The British actor who starred in War House is uncannily convincing as the young Firth/Lomax capturing his voice and speech patterns without every coming across as mannered. The dual time frame risks creating a disjointed narrative but the filmmakers have struck lucky with Irvine. We cling to their memory like a life raft, evidence that the troubled pair have something lovely very much worth fighting for.įrom here on in the mood darkens and we plunge into the horrors of the Second World War and Lomax’s increasingly disturbed and fraught present. There’s a charm, spontaneity and playfulness about their early scenes together that turn out to be vital when the mood changes. The picture begins in what turns out to be atypically jaunty mode, light relief before the grueling main event, as we observe how Lomax meets his wife Patti (a charming Nicole Kidman), the woman whose love forces him to confront his past. RYAN: Well it is still a very difficult to watch, heinous true war story its based on the real life events of WW II Veteran Eric Lomax, played by Colin Firth. To raise morale and pick up news from home he constructed a radio but it was discovered and Lomax was beaten and tortured, events which haunt him to the present day: tranquil Berwick-Upon-Tweed in 1980 where the story starts. Like “Bertie” in The King’s Speech the middle-aged Lomax is a man who can’t communicate but it’s not a stammer and childhood unhappiness that prevents him but the haunting memories of torture at the hands of his Japanese oppressors.Īs we witness in several flashbacks Lomax was a 21-year-old Signals Engineer (Jeremy Irvine) when he was taken prisoner after the fall of Singapore and put to work helping construct the notorious “Death Railway” from Thailand to Burma a bitterly ironic fate for an avowed railway enthusiast. The Oscar winning star of The King’s Speech is perfectly cast as Eric Lomax who endured appalling hardship as a prisoner under the Japanese during the Second World War as documented in his powerful memoir The Railway Man. The Railway Man Eric Lomax 4.11 7,006 ratings709 reviews During the second world war Eric Lomax was forced to work on the notorious Burma-Siam Railway and was tortured by the Japanese for making a crude radio. WHO better than Colin Firth to portray the silent suffering of a war veteran?
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