Journey's End

Journey's End is a 2017 British war film based on the 1928 play by R. C. Sherriff. Written by Simon Reade and directed by Saul Dibb, it was screened in the "Special Presentations" section at the 2017 Toronto International Film Festival. The film is the fifth film adaptation of the play, following Journey's End (1930), The Other Side (1931), Aces High (1976), and Journey's End (1988 BBC TV film). Plot Young Second Lieutenant Raleigh is sent to the front lines of the war, the trenches in Northern France. He requests of General Raleigh, his uncle, that he be under the command of Captain Stanhope of C Company, a man who was a few years his senior at school who used to holiday with Raleigh and his sister Margaret. Although an outstanding leader, who won the Military Cross at the Battle of Vimy Ridge, Stanhope has taken to heavy drinking to numb himself to the horrors of war. Other company officers include the kindly second-in-command, Lieutenant Osborne, an older man who likes to be called 'Uncle' by all fellow officers, Trotter, also an older man of lower social class promoted to make up shortages, and Hibbert whose attempts to escape the front line by complaining of eye pain are angrily rejected by Stanhope. The officers work as a close team, sitting down to a three-course dinner each evening (in practice whatever soup, tinned meat and tinned fruit the Mess Cook has rustled up – in contrast to the fine meals which more senior officers are shown eating behind the front). Raleigh learns his duties, making frequent inspections of the trenches, supervising the morning "Stand To" (guarding the trench in case of a dawn attack) and learning the names of his men.