Terry George writes historical dramas around people with immediate problems to solve. We value his feeling for practical courage and difficult family ties, though his determination to make history accessible can make it too tidy.
Fi1m perspective
In Hotel Rwanda (2004), a hotel manager's professional skills and personal connections become ways of keeping people alive. Terry George gives those everyday abilities enough attention to make Paul Rusesabagina credible, and Don Cheadle plays him with a restraint the writing needs. We believe in the work before we are asked to admire the man. George's historical dramas earn our interest through such practical detail, although the writing can tidy away too much.
His screenwriting debut, In the Name of the Father (1993), co-written with director Jim Sheridan, already has that difficulty. The troubled relationship between father and son gives the miscarriage-of-justice story something to work through beyond its justified anger. Daniel Day-Lewis and Pete Postlethwaite make that relationship worth the discomfort, while Gerry's flaws keep the central character from becoming merely a case to be argued. But the factual adjustments made for emotional effect matter here. We want a story about justice to leave more room for the untidiness of real lives.
He moved into directing with Some Mother's Son (1996), approaching the Troubles through a mother's perspective. In Hotel Rwanda, co-written with Keir Pearson, he applied that attention to individual lives to the Rwandan genocide, and later turned to the Armenian genocide in The Promise (2016). The appeal of that approach is clear: an individual gives us a way into events we might otherwise struggle to grasp.
In Hotel Rwanda, we were angry at the international inaction because the film makes Paul's daily efforts to keep people alive so convincing. Cheadle benefits from that attention, but Sophie Okonedo's Tatiana is less well served. She gives the marriage seriousness; George and Pearson too often make her vulnerability another difficulty for Paul. Her performance suggests concerns of her own that the screenplay does not give enough space. It is a revealing weakness in a writer so interested in the individual.
The same narrow focus leaves Hotel Rwanda's political circumstances thinly explained, with surrounding characters given too little room. George makes us care, but we would like him to trust us with more of the history and less familiar suspense. Start with In the Name of the Father for the more satisfying drama, provided you can forgive its heavy emotional prompting.
Biography
Terry George is an Irish screenwriter and film director. Born Terence Noel George on 20 December 1952 in Belfast, Northern Ireland, he was educated at Queen's University Belfast.
He co-wrote the screenplay for In the Name of the Father (1993) with Jim Sheridan. George has written or directed several films dealing with the Troubles in Northern Ireland, including Some Mother's Son (1996), which he directed and co-wrote, The Boxer (1997), and Hotel Rwanda (2004), which he directed and co-wrote. Other credits include Hart's War (2002), Reservation Road (2007) and The Promise (2016). He won an Academy Award for the short film The Shore (2011).
