3 days Ago By Louise Rugendyke
The Narrow Road to the Deep North ★★★★ Australia has a rich and deep history of war films and TV series. From Vietnam to Gallipoli and Anzac Girls , we have found great value in telling our stories in times of conflict. The Narrow Road to the Deep North , set mainly in the harrowing confines of a POW camp on the Death Railway in Burma, is perhaps the most beautiful and harrowing of those I have seen, with a tender performance from Jacob Elordi at its centre.
Jacob Elordi as Dorrigo Evans and Olivia DeJonge as Ella in The Narrow Road to the Deep North. Directed by Justin Kurzel and adapted by Shaun Grant from Richard Flanagan’s 2014 Booker Prize-winning novel, the five-part series is just as much a love story as it is one of war. It slides through time, from 1940 to 1989, following Dorrigo Evans (Elordi), a young doctor on the verge of being sent to war.
He is engaged to Ella ( Olivia DeJonge ), who comes from a well-to-do Melbourne family who can secure Dorrigo’s future as a surgeon. However, when Dorrigo goes to visit his Uncle Keith (Simon Baker) before deployment, he is drawn to Keith’s younger wife, Amy (Odessa Young). Their affair is all-consuming, and it’s the memory of this that sustains Dorrigo when he is captured and sent to work on the infamous Death Railway and then, later, as an older man (now played by Irish actor Ciaran Hinds, with Heather Mitchell as the older Ella).
The older Dorrigo is still ruined by his experiences in the war – outwardly successful and revered as a war hero, he is reckless in his personal life and uncompromising at work. It’s that inner conflict that drives the story: how can you be seen as a good man on the outside – a war hero, a top surgeon, a national treasure – when all you feel on the inside is shame, guilt, loss and regret? Heather Mitchell and Ciaran Hinds as the older Ella and Dorrigo Evans. The series is Elordi’s first role at home since 2020’s Paul Hogan comedy The Very Excellent Mr Dundee .
He made his name overseas instead, with starring roles in the HBO teen drama Euphoria , as well as the films Priscilla and Saltburn . This is something different altogether – a physically and mentally demanding role that draws not only on his leading-man looks but also on his quiet strength as an actor. Watchful and softly spoken, he rarely raises his voice, so when he does eventually crack, it means something.
At nearly two metres tall, he towers over his co-stars, but it works because Dorrigo is seen as exceptional, a war hero above all the others. People are quite literally looking up to him, no matter how he feels about himself. Jacob Elordi (left) as Dorrigo Evans and Thomas Weatherall as Frank Gardiner in The Narrow Road to the Deep North.
The POW camp is, rightly, a hellhole, a damned place where the trees tower over the men, creating this suffocating prison where light struggles to break through the canopy. The prisoner’s emaciated bodies are covered in mud and blood – kudos to all the young actors who put their bodies on the line for this– and have an almost painterly quality to them, as if caught in a canvas from Goya or Caravaggio. The Japanese soldiers are also caught in a spiral of escalating violence, madness and desperation.
These are not easy scenes to watch. Episode four comes with a warning about graphic violence, but it still didn’t prepare me. It wasn’t just difficult to watch, it was the crying and whimpering that will stay with me.
Thomas Weatherall, who played the young POW involved, is astounding. Importantly, none of this feels gratuitous. Kurzel and Grant, who have worked together on the films Snowtown and Nitram , among others, have never been interested in being flashy or violent just for the spectacle.
The horror is always human, which is what makes it all the more devastating. The Narrow Road to the Deep North streams on Amazon Prime Video from April 18. Find out the next TV, streaming series and movies to add to your must-sees.
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