Tom Hanks Gives Another Captivating Performance in Trailer for News of the World

Tom Hanks is heading west.

The Oscar winner's next role comes in News of the World, a western in which he's on a mission to reunite a girl with her family.

Directed by Paul Greengrass and based on a 2016 novel by Paulette Jiles, the film follows Hanks' Captain Jefferson Kyle Kidd as he travels through the frontier to help return a young 10-year-old girl named Johanna, played by Helena Zengel, to her biological family after she was taken in by the Kiowa people six years earlier and raised as one of their own.

The new trailer shows Kidd introduce himself as a storyteller who reads the news before he comes across Johanna on his travels.

"Ladies and gentleman, my name is Jefferson Kyle Kidd and I’m here tonight to read the news from across this great world of ours," he says.

As he decides to take in Johanna and return her to her family, Kidd protects her from outlaws and dangers after explaining why he's chosen to take this journey.

"She needs to laugh and dream. She needs new memories," he says.

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According to Vanity Fair, Hanks' character's goal in the film is to "bring people together and expand their perspective of the world" through his one-man show about true stories from around the world.

"When the fabric of society is in tatters, you’ve got a character in Kidd, who in his lonely, singular, small way is a thread who connects one community to another,” director Greengrass told the publication.

He adds of the film, which takes place in 1870: "Even though it’s set then, it’s a film about our times."

"Neighbors and families and communities were in stark and often violent conflict with each other, and Americans needed to decide who they were as Americans."

News of the World opens this Christmas.