JOURNEY’S END
A POWERFUL NEW ADAPTATION OF R.C. SHERIFF’S CLASSIC ANTI-WAR PLAY, DEPICTING THE HORROR AND TRAGEDY OF WAR
Certificate: TBC Director: Saul Dibb Cast: Sam Claflin, Paul Bettany, Toby Jones, Asa Butterfield Released: 2 Feb 2018
R.C. Sheriff drew upon his experiences in the trenches during the Great War when writing his 1928 stage play Journey’s
End. He served as a captain in the Ninth battalion of the East Surrey Regiment, saw action at Vimy Ridge and was invalided at Passchendaele. For his service he was awarded the Military Cross.
While the playwright initially struggled to get Journey’s End into the West End, with companies finding it too gloomy, it resonated with audiences and swiftly became the must-see production. The show’s success in London launched the Hollywood career of theatre director James Whale (another war veteran), who took the play to Broadway and adapted it for the screen at Universal Pictures in 1930.
In the age of filmmakers revelling in the carnage of battle and showering the audience with gore,
Journey’s End relies on the depiction of tortured emotions and states of mind. There is very little combat, save for a short sequence where several officers are tasked with running over to the German trenches and kidnapping a soldier for intel purposes. The plot takes place almost entirely within the confines of a trench and inside a cramped officers’ quarters.
Sam Claflin is superb as haunted Captain Stanhope, a former school master who has turned to sinking bottle of whisky after bottle of whisky while awaiting the order to go over the top. Set in the days leading up to the 1918 Spring Offensive, it’s a tremendous performance with very little actorly grandstanding involved. Claflin captures so tragically a man whose nerves are beyond shattered and whose volatile temperament masks a deeply traumatised individual who knows the game is up. Like Captain Blackadder in
Blackadder Goes Forth (1989), a series directly inspired by Sheriff’s play, Stanhope often sardonically quips about the utter lunacy of the situation. At heart, Journey’s End is a sorrowful and strikingly put counterargument to one of our greatest national myths – the British stiff upper lip and self-image as plucky ‘mustn’t grumble’ types in the face of hardship or challenge.
Director Saul Dibb and cinematographer Laurie Rose make excellent use of the restricted setting, overcoming narrative limitations by heightening the sense of claustrophobia and boredom in waiting to die. It’s a suitably grimlooking film, painted in mud tones and drained of nearly all colour. Everything looks drab, coated in thick layers of dirt and dried blood, the gas-lit officers’ quarters gives off sepulchral vibes, like the soldiers are ghosts already occupying a crypt. The blank daylight coming in from short wooden staircase up into the trenches symbolising the stairway to heaven the men will be ascending once the order comes in to cross No Man’s Land and into the hellfire of the ready and primed German machine guns.
A sombre and deeply moving drama, brilliantly acted and directed,
Journey’s End is an anti-war movie of the finest calibre. Claflin is the standout among the cast, but he is ably backed by a roster of top-notch character actors in Toby Jones, Asa Butterfield, Stephen Graham and Paul Bettany.
“CLAFLIN CAPTURES SO TRAGICALLY A MAN WHOSE NERVES ARE BEYOND SHATTERED AND WHOSE VOLATILE TEMPERAMENT MASKS A DEEPLY TRAUMATISED INDIVIDUAL WHO KNOWS THE GAME IS UP”