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As Winston, Hurt manages to seem innocent and curious whenever the film asks him to be, and hopelessly defeated when it doesn’t. The film’s visual effectiveness is heightened by John Hurt’s central performance as its unassuming protagonist.

Michael Radford’s big-screen take on 1984 is a fittingly haunting dystopian drama.

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Whether its the way the paleness of its actors’ skin matches the dull grey and white walls of its sets, or the sheer drabness of the costumes, Nineteen Eighty-Four believably brings to life a society that has successfully managed to erase any trace of humanity’s collective resiliency and spirit. The film’s cinematography, done by a then-up-and-coming Roger Deakins, paints its dystopian London as a world drained of all color (and, therefore, life). Visually, Radford’s film perfectly reflects the bleakness of its story. In other words, don’t expect to be uplifted.

While saying much more would lessen the weight of the turns Nineteen Eighty-Four takes in its second half, the film uses Winston’s journey as a vessel to explore the insidious methods of power-hungry totalitarians, the dangers of constant surveillance, and how people’s thinking can be controlled and altered through fear and misinformation. Their affair makes them both vulnerable to punishment by The Party’s secret surveillance force, the Thought Police. He also finds himself having a secret, unsanctioned love affair with the free-spirited Julia (Suzanna Hamilton). It follows Winston Smith (John Hurt), an ordinary London bureaucrat who dreams of a world and life better than the one he’s always known under The Party’s rule. Nineteen Eighty-Four takes place in an alternate version of England ruled by a totalitarian regime known only as The Party.

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