Eric Lomax was one of thousands who, after the fall of Singapore in 1942, was tortured by the Japanese military police, the Kempeitai, and forced to work on the railroads. These memories did not disappear upon his return to the UK and eventually made their way into a memoir, which has now made its way to Hollywood.

Jeremy Irvine, Oscar-nominated for his performance in War Horse, doesn’t disappoint as the younger Lomax (the waterboarding scene leaves a lasting impression, not least because he did his own stunts), while Colin Firth superbly portrays his later life, grappling with the ghosts that haunt both dreams and reality. It is only Nicole Kidman, as Lomax’s wife, who seems colourless, at times even blunt.

Director Jonathan Teplitzky excels in detail: whole scenes are shot in the blurred reflections of sea-facing windows, encounters mirrored in passing trains. But the overall cinematography is rather clunky. The film flicks back and forth between different filters. Very yellow for disturbing flashbacks, and shockingly bright for the natural beauty of Burma, they are simply too jarring. It also jolts nervously between many locations – numerous trains, a veterans’s club, a Scottish honeymoon, and the war with its camps and cells.

Fortunately, the technicalities do not overshadow the story’s hopeful content. Lomax’s journey to face his tormentor – not to murder but to find peace – is a powerful message for any process of reconciliation.

But power also emerges from the light Lomax’s story casts on a situation not yet confined to history. What happened in the torture room on the banks of the River Kwai seventy years ago has been repeated over and over ever since. A horrific depiction of torture not far from the realities of Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib is incredibly pertinent. Even if we have seen Firth perform a better script, and Kidman with more character, The Railway Man is worth watching – if only to make ourselves aware of this not-yet history.