Mr Pip
Starring: Hugh Laurie, Xzannjah Matsi, Eka Darville, Florence Korokoro
Directed By: Andrew Adamson
Reviewed by Danielle Muir

[rating: 3.5/5]

Hopefully, upon going into Mr Pip you already have a prior knowledge of the horrors the people of Bougainville experienced in the mine conflict.  If you don’t, I implore you to read and educate yourselves – otherwise horrific violence that strikes from nowhere will be too much to handle.

The film starts of pleasant – a heartwarming tale in a conflicted setting.  Matilda is one of the young residents of Bougainville, and is entranced by the novel Great Expectations that is being taught to her by Mr Watts (Laurie).  Her imagination runs wild as she transports herself back into the time of ye olde’ England, a far stretch from the beaches of Papua New Guinea.  Facing great personal tragedy and the brutality of her circumstances, Matilda continues to find strength in the words of her newly beloved Dickens.

I confess that I didn’t know an extensive lot about the horrors of the mine conflict – what I didn’t expect from Mr Pip was the level of violence that flies out of nowhere and smacks you right in the face.  I certainly was unsuspecting – the first half of the film points to this being a heartfelt tale, about learning and literature, family conflicts and imagination, almost something you’d take your children to see.  But at that halfway mark, things take an extreme turn – people are hacked to death, shot, children are killed, and the violence that is implied is absolutely horrific.

I am well aware that a film about such events would probably have raised criticism should they have sugar-coated or toned down the themes, but in truth from the moment I was blindsided by the violence I fell into a pit of despair that I found myself unable to recover from.  The rest of the film was blanketed in a cloud, and no matter how uplifting further scenes may have been, it was just a little too much.

There is joy to be had in the first half however – Laurie is charismatic and always an intriguing figure to observe, but it really is newcomer Xzannjah as the idealistic Matilda who steals the show.  Innocent, feisty and gorgeous, she’s a delight on screen and takes to acting like a duck to water.  She also possesses the incredible ability to be aged up convincingly – something that often comes off as highly naff in other efforts.

Mr Pip is certainly by no means a bad film – it is a great story set in a location that doesn’t often receive a lot of screen time, however if I can give you one piece of advice, it’s brace yourself.