A version of this story ran in the March/April 2021 issue.
More than most Westerns, News of the World is about things which no longer are. Where most entries of the genre take a broader view of the West and its iconography, Paul Greengrass’ latest feature relishes in the historical specificity of Texas in 1870. It’s a world drained by the exhaustion of the Civil War but also hopped up on the lawlessness of Westward Expansion. The United States is turning a page in its own history and those who can’t keep up are sure to be left behind. The film’s focus is on the chaos of change, which is also, unfortunately, where it loses its way.
In Wichita Falls, we’re introduced to Captain Jefferson Kyle Kidd (Tom Hanks), an ex-Confederate from San Antonio who makes his way by traveling town to town reading current events from newspapers to illiterate locals at 10 cents a head. He draws modest crowds, but his profession is quickly becoming antiquated. He’s a man haunted by his own history, constantly on the move to escape his memories of war and his wife’s death. While traveling to his next town, he comes across the site of a wagon massacre. The initial assumption is that it was an Indian raid, but Kidd soon discovers the lynched body of the Black driver tagged with a racist warning. At the site of the attack, he also finds a white girl (Helena Zengel) clad in buckskin who only speaks Kiowa. Johanna is an 11-year-old white captive recently retrieved by the lynched driver to be returned to her family. After an unsuccessful hand-off to Union Army officials, Kidd, with Hanks’ signature All-American grit, takes it upon himself to return her.
