Sawthe 1984 version of Nineteen Eighty Four (cute, huh?) It was pretty miserable. The story is supposed to be a cautionary tragedy about the power of totalitarian governments to actually destroy the spirit of mankind. The miserable tone therefore makes sense but of course does not make it any less miserable. The warning to us the audience is not complete unless the government wins and therefore, once we know what's up, we know Winston must be destroyed utterly. The plot follows Winston, a newspaper editor who looks like a starving, depression-era farmer. He keeps a secret and illegal diary where he records his thoughts and, worst of all, falls in love with a woman. Soon they are eating illicit jam and talking with her about how the government might yet fall (deeply seditious stuff, of course.)
In the climactic torture scenes, the interrogator monologues grimly and drops some of the film's best lines and some of the film's core arguments ("If you want a vision of the future, Winston, imagine a boot stamping on a human face forever." also "Power is not a means, it's an end.") It is here that the film becomes most perfect. The preceding stuff is shockingly naturalistic, leading to a contrast between the weird, empty sets dominated by giant televisions and the characters who behave fairly normally in these strange surroundings. During the torture, the film sort of wallows in the misery it's been promising us all along.
the film is slightly, slightly more optimistic than the book (the ending, I felt was left sufficiently ambiguous that hope could be seen if you wanted to see it.) The film is very good. It's incredibly restrained for a film set in the future and made in the clunky, junky excesses of the 80s. There are a few artistic visual flourishes but these are never allowed to contaminate the bleak and chilly real world. The music was almost done by David Bowie (which would have been horrendous. Can you imagine?) So, all-in-all a miserable film, but a good one.
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