MovieChat Forums > The Railway Man (2014) Discussion > The one unexplained point....

The one unexplained point....

posted 9 years ago by Chanpuru
9 replies | jump to latest

Stellan's character is an anomaly amongst his obviously British comrades in that his accent is non-British (Stellan's unchanged Swedish) yet this is left unexplained. Weirder still Sam Reid does a completely different accent as a younger version of the same character. I'm guessing that's just him making a mess of the accent...sounded a bit like a slightly strangled German accent.

It gets weirder because FINLAY never existed and is actually a composite of a couple of British soldiers. So why the accent/foreign casting?

[–] t-l-s 8 years ago

I really like Stellan as an actor but he was completely micast in this role and the younger version of himself just made the accent issues even more obvious.

The directors/producers must just really like Stellan because there are plenty of older characters who could have played the role. I actually think the younger version was miscast as well, and looked far too healthy and muscular for someone in a prison camp!

[–] Chanpuru 8 years ago

Agreed. I think the main problem i was highlighting though was the whole unexplained accent thing. In multicultural modern Britain this might seem like a non-point....but for the movie to not address it in the period was jarring and weird.

[–] poettesse 8 years ago

His accent didn't bother me at all. He's an excellent enough actor to be cast as any nationality.

[–] Newbridge_Wolf 8 years ago

Maybe just me, but I thought he sounded South African, which wouldn't have been out of place.

[–] Lord_Luvvaduck 8 years ago

At first,in the veterans' club, I thought he was supposed to be a Norwegian veteran who settled in the UK after the war. Only because I recognised Stellan Skarsgard as a Scandinavian actor. Then on hearing his character's name - 'Finlay' - I guessed he was supposed to be a Scot.

[–] Chanpuru 8 years ago

Firstly if he was supposed to be Scottish then the accent was bizarre and completely wrong.

And why Stellan Skarsgard?

[–] Lord_Luvvaduck 8 years ago

I agree - a particularly mangled Scottish accent and odd casting.

[–] Chanpuru 8 years ago

Not even mangled, confused. I might as well call it a mangled German accent or a mangled Greek accent.

[–] Cranmer (139) 5 years ago

Finlay was serving with a Signals regiment in Singapore. Singapore was largely defended against the Japanese by colonial civilian volunteers who served as Territorials or armed special constables. Every able bodied man was required to defend the colony so it's likely that Finlay could have been a Norwegian or Danish merchant, or banker or businessman of some kind working in Singapore who joined up. Perhaps he changed his name to Finlay as it was a more easily pronounced, anglicised (Scotticised in fact) version of a difficult to pronounce foreign name.

Still, it's odd that none of this was explained or even referred to. A brief line would have sufficed.