On the second day of its release, “The Railway Man” mustered fewer than ten people at Fox Towers Theatre on Saturday, April 26. Certainly inauspicious, and fairly justified, I realized upon finishing the 2.5 hour  film.

Based on a best-selling memoir sharing the same name, the storyline is compelling: a World War II vet who finds out that his torturer during his time in a P.O.W. camp is still alive. The protagonist, Eric Lomax, travels to Thailand to seek out reparation from the Japanese interpreter responsible for his suffering. However, the underlying plot addresses the post-traumatic stress disorder Lomax suffers from and his relationship with his newlywed wife. She pressures him to deal with his longstanding nightmares and flashbacks from his torturer’s deeds, and the story turns from a promising action movie to a profound drama.

Starring Colin Firth, and Nicole Kidman, the cast looked encouraging with Firth coming off of his brilliant roles in “The King’s Speech” and “Love, Actually.” However, the plot overwhelmed them as they took on roles that clearly relied so heavily on internal monologue and narration available in the book. Firth’s character, Lomax, struggled with an internal battle between forgiveness and revenge towards his torturer, and Firth was not able to capture the dark, complex issue at hand. One was able to get the idea that that was the character Firth was trying to play, but he never fully delivered it convincingly. He did, however, capture the terrifying effects of PTSD and war in his wild nightmares and neurotic personality well. Kidman posed as neither an outstanding nor terrible supporting actress. Her work portraying the loving, supportive and worried wife was cut out for her, and she performed it sufficiently.

Although a promising story, “The Railway Man” is a movie that should be watched only after one has finished the book it is based on. The memoir captures insight, details, and emotions that are dropped in films after editing and shortening. It allows one to connect intimately with the characters and really understand the individual strife regarding human nature, forgiveness, and interpersonal connection. These concepts are all lost when squeezed into a 2.5 hour production glamorized to appeal to mass audiences. However, the movie was not absolutely terrible – the cinematography and contrasting shots of long, gray beaches versus the lush humidity of Thailand were noteworthy, as well as the abilities of the actors in the tension scenes, like when Lomax and his fellow soldiers built an illegal radio and got caught, or when Lomax finally confronts his torturer. However, movies should not need to require a preparatory reading to go along with it. “The Railway Man” was a great memoir; let it stay that way.