M, MA15+ and R18+, 5 episodes, Amazon
4 Stars
Review by © Jane Freebury
Anyone unfamiliar with the Richard Flanagan book on which this television series is based may be expecting a war drama here. It is set in war, but it is also a love story. As the two threads, love and war, compete for our attention, the dissonance between what is wonderful about human beings and what is terrible, lingers on. Opinion may be divided on whether this is a love story, as the author insists, or whether it is a story about war, but it sure shows us the best and worst of ourselves.
Flanagan’s beautiful and devastating novel first appeared in 2013 and picked up the prestigious Booker Prize. The story of an Australian army medic who served during a notorious episode of World War II, became a hero in public life but couldn’t live with himself, is now adapted for the screen in a collaboration between Australians, director Justin Kurzel and screenwriter Shaun Grant, who are known for bold, distinctive work like Snowtown, The True History of the Kelly Gang, and Nitram. It is a stunning experience.
Most of the action takes place at the Hellfire Pass cutting of the Burma-Thai Railway, and in an open-air prison in nearby jungle where the Japanese officers try to extract better results from their emaciated disease-ravaged workers, a band of prisoners of war led by army doctor, Dorrigo Evans (Jacob Elordi).
Over the year it took to build the notorious railway, tens of thousands of men succumbed to starvation, disease like dysentery and cholera, or the brutal regime of their captors. Among the workforce of 200,000, were thousands of Allied POWs. Some 2,800 Australians died in the horrendous conditions, while deaths among local men recruited were in even higher proportions.
Dissonance between what is wonderful about human beings and what is terrible, lingers on
The details of the conditions the men experienced can be very tough to watch, so the content warnings about medical procedures and violence need to be taken seriously. On the other hand, there are warnings about the sex, of which there is plenty. It’s also graphic, but natural, sensually depicted, and a welcome countervailing factor against confronting brutality.
The film takes another turn again with the occasional, thoughtful scenes in which Evans is required to keep company with Major Nakamura (Sho Kasamatsu) for conversation and a shared drink, we are offered insight into the Japanese perspective on the war.
The narrative spans 50 years. On the face of it, it would seem that in the 1980s Evans still has a lot going for himself. He has kept his good looks (thank you Ciaran Hinds) and has managed to live a successful life, maintain his marriage with Ella (Heather Mitchell) and a career as a surgeon. But even in later life, sleep brings little rest for Evans in his Sydney mansion with harbour views.
He struggles with his status and fame, an unwelcome reputation as a war hero who did his best for his men who became a ghost army of living skeletons and died anyway. The sensual trove of memories of his affair with free-spirited Amy (Odessa Young) before he was shipped overseas, can barely overcome the emotional and apparently unreasonable burden of feeling that, ultimately, he had failed his men.
A convincing man of action, a lover of women and a bibliophile who loves poetry, including erotic lines by the ancients
Flanagan’s novel was inspired by the experiences of his own father, a POW in the contingent overseen by real-life war hero Lieutenant-Colonel ‘Weary’ Dunlop. The grandfather of screenwriter Grant was also a POW, a taciturn man who spent two years on the railway. One hardly dares to imagine…
Elordi and Young are great together. As the younger version of the man, Elordi has the more challenging characterisation to convey. On the verge of marrying Ella (Olivia DeJonge), he suddenly finds himself helpless with longing for the young second wife of his uncle Keith (Simon Baker), a publican.
Elordi holds the centre with his impressive performance. Convincing as a man of action, a lover of women and a bibliophile who loves poetry, including erotic lines by the ancients. That he carries a copy of the poems of the Roman poet Catullus in his pocket, tells you something. His idyll with Amy before the war is a glowing motif, a push-back against the disturbing ambience of war at the edges of the frame.
First published in The Canberra Times on 25 April 2025. Jane’s reviews are also published on Rotten Tomatoes
Feature image of Jacob Elordi courtesy Amazon Prime