YMMV / Mr. Jones (2019)

• Alternative Character Interpretation: Gareth Jones calls out Walter Duranty for being complicit of the Holodomor because of his publication of papers full of lies, but how much he is aware of it is actually unclear. Is he a sincere, communist follower who parrots the Stalinist official truth because he blindly believes it? Is he rather a cynical communist sympathiser who knows about the occuring tragedy but thinks the end justifies the means? Or is he a pragmatist who knows and disapproves, but relays the official truth because he wants to keep his job in Moscow and avoid getting in trouble? (This film is set during the Stalinist era).
• Fridge Horror: As mentioned below, the Soviet official in charge of guiding Gareth to Ukraine has a high risk of being deported to a gulag or executed as a punishment for his failure to watch for his guest.
• Funny Moments: At a party (actually, an orgy) organized by Duranty, Gareth attempts to leave early and encounters a (naked) Duranty, who blames him for not liking the party and being a dull person. Gareth retorts his life isn't so dull, because he is currently chatting with a naked Pulitzer Prize-winner. Duranty laughs.
• Harsher in Hindsight: The horrific scenes of starved Ukrainians fighting for survival become harder to watch when in the 2020s, another Russian autocrat would launch his own campaign of terror and death on Ukraine.
• Squick: The scene where children are cooking some unspecified meat, and bluntly tell Gareth it's their brother (he doesn't understand), and share the meat with him. Shortly after, Gareth finds an emaciated, dead body lying in their garden, with some flesh cut from a leg. Cue Vomit Indiscretion Shot.
• The Woobie:
  • In the course of the movie, what Gareth witnesses in Ukraine turns him into a broken shell. He's especially traumatized after noticing starving people where reduced to cannibalism... which he understood after eating human flesh himself. Then people don't believe him (or don't want to) in Britain.
  • The Soviet official in charge of guiding Gareth through Ukraine (understand: "show him the right things to make sure Gareth doesn't discover anything compromising for the image of the Soviet Union") looks unpleasant at first, but when he understands Gareth managed to ditch him, he is last seen with a Oh, Crap! expression on his face. Considering how Josef Stalin's regime reacted to failure at the time in real life, you'll probably feel sorry for the man.

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