3 w. ago
The Narrow Road to the Deep North review – immensely powerful TV
This adaptation of the Booker prize-winning novel spanning three timelines is a visceral, passionate drama starring Ciarán Hinds and Jacob Elordi. What bracingly confident televisionThere is an overwhelming darkness to The Narrow Road to the Deep North, Justin Kurzel’s adaptation of Richard Flanagan’s Booker prize-winning novel. Thematically, this is to be expected: it is about a group of Australian prisoners of war constructing the Burma railway in the mid-1940s, at the tail end of the second world war. It is about the lasting trauma of conflict and imprisonment. It spans half a century, and though it tempers its darkness with a rich love story, it is largely violent, fatalistic and sorrowful. But visually, too, you may find yourself fiddling with the contrast and brightness settings. This very much matches its mood to its palette.Jacob Elordi is perfectly handsome and haunted as the younger Dorrigo, a poetry-loving doctor who is about to be married to the well-to-do and socially c...
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