User:LancedSoul/sandbox/1984 (1984)

1984, also known as Nineteen Eighty-Four, is a 1984 British dystopian science fiction film written and directed by Michael Radford, based upon George Orwell's 1949 novel of the same name. Starring John Hurt, Richard Burton, Suzanna Hamilton, and Cyril Cusack, the film follows the life of Winston Smith, a low-ranking civil servant in a war-torn London ruled by Oceania, a totalitarian superstate.[6] Smith (Hurt) struggles to maintain his sanity and his grip on reality as the regime's overwhelming power and influence persecutes individualism and individual thinking on both a political and personal level.

Plot
A man loses his identity while living under a repressive regime. In a story based on George Orwell's classic novel, Winston Smith (John Hurt) is a government employee whose job involves the rewriting of history in a manner that casts his fictional country's leaders in a charitable light. His trysts with Julia (Suzanna Hamilton) provide his only measure of enjoyment, but lawmakers frown on the relationship -- and in this closely monitored society, there is no escape from Big Brother.

Why It Rocks

 * 1) The bleach-bypassed cinematography of the 1984 movie adaptation that gives it a dark and desaturated colors close to black-and-white elevates both the Scenery Gorn and Scenery Porn of the movie and truly brought Oceania to life. It was one of Roger Deakins' early work, and it showed how much grit he already has in the field. The strength of the cinematography can be especially seen in The Criterion Collection restoration of the movie.
 * 2) *This extends to the actual visual effects of the movie itself, as all of them were practical effects. This includes the explosion, which was an actual explosion, and scenes of Winston and O'Brien walking in the corridor where the door leads to the Golden Country, that was actually shot on location as well, with the corridor actually being built on location.

Reception
Review aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes has given the film a 74% approval rating, based on 27 reviews, with an average rating of 6.7/10. The site's critical consensus states: "1984 doesn't fully emerge from the shadow of its source material, but still proves a solid, suitably discomfiting adaptation of a classic dystopian tale.". Metacritic has given the film a rating of 67 out of 100 based on 8 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".