By: Miguel Ernesto Yusty

NEWS OF THE WORLD is a Western film directed by Paul Greengrass, released in 2020, that champions the power of words and the pen in a lawless world. The protagonist is played by Tom Hanks, who, by a twist of fate, must take care of a young girl, a victim of the wars between "Indians" and "cowboys." Although Greengrass is an expert in fast-paced cinema and is known for the second and third installments of the saga based on the amnesiac spy Jason Bourn, this film has a measured, but never languid, rhythm.

In NEWS OF THE WORLD, Greengrass constructs a Western with archetypal characters and settings, in which a cultured Civil War veteran travels through the towns of the American West reading newspapers to audiences of ordinary people. Tom Hanks and his character reveal to the inhabitants of the Deep West that life has more charms than their poor, dusty villages. With this film, the "journalist's craft" and the work of the mass media are redefined.

The film returns us to journalism, to its connection with the public. It reminds us that the media has the power to uncover truths that liberate us. Amidst the hostility of the 19th-century Western, the film finds space for the poetic and becomes one of the most interesting works of late 2020 and early 2021.