Jonathan Teplitzky’s The Railway Man had its debut out in Toronto last month, and there are only a few months separating us from its arrival in cinemas.
The first trailer was launched online very soon after its TIFF bow, and now the first poster has been released, in both its quad and portrait variants, giving us a look at leading stars Colin Firth, Nicole Kidman, and Jeremy Irvine.
Eric Lomax (Colin Firth) is a quiet, middle-aged radio and railway enthusiast. He meets kind, sunny Patti (Nicole Kidman) one afternoon on a Scottish train. The year is 1983. A whirlwind courtship and wedding follow, but on their wedding night, and for many nights to come, Eric succumbs to graphic, paralyzing nightmares. He provides Patti no explanation.
Confused and hurt by her new husband’s remoteness, Patti turns to Eric’s friend Finlay (Stellan Skarsgård), who finally discloses her husband’s harrowing secret: along with thousands of other British soldiers captured by the Japanese during the Second World War, Eric was forced to work on the construction of the Thailand- Burma Railway — the so-called Death Railway. When a secret radio he had built was discovered, he was brutally tortured by a Japanese officer. Realizing that there is only one way to save her marriage, Patti begins the search for the man who haunts her husband’s soul.
Starring alongside the leading trio are Stellan Skarsgård, Hiroyuki Sanada, Sam Reid, and Tanroh Ishida, making for a very promising ensemble cast.
Teplitzksy (Burning Man) is directing from a script written by Andy Paterson (Girl with a Earring) and Frank Cottrell Boyce (24 Hour Party People), based on The Railway Man: A POW’s Searing Account of War, Brutality and Forgivenes, the autobiography of Eric Lomax.
The Railway Man is now set to be released in the UK on 1st January, two days earlier than previously expected. Still no word yet on a US release date, but The Weinstein Company has acquired the rights, and it will be interesting to see if they give it an awards-qualifying release before the end of the year.
