IELTS Cue Card # 135 – A film based on a real-life event or a real person
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IELTS Speaking Part 2: IELTS Cue Card/ Candidate Task Card.
Describe a film which is based on a real-life event or a real person.
You should say:
- what film/movie it is
- what the story of the film/movie is
- what you learned from it
and explain how you felt about this film/movie.
Model Answer 1:
I have watched many movies, supposedly based on real events or real persons. No doubt, some of those movies were really good because of their distinctive visual appeals, narratives and other reasons while some of them were “so-so”. However, today, I would like to talk about a movie which I consider to be one of the best war films, I have ever seen.
The name of this movie is “Black Hawk Down”. This war film was made in 2001, based on the 1999 non-fiction book of the same name by journalist Mark Bowden, about the U.S. military’s 1993 raid in Mogadishu. The movie tells a story about a US military operation, which took place in Mogadishu, Somalia, in October of 1993, in order to deliver U.N food shipments, by preventing the Somalian warlords. But the military raid went disastrously wrong, when optimistic plans ran into unexpected resistance, resulting in the loss of 18 US soldiers and wounding more than 70 of them.
What actually happened was that enemy rockets, launched by Somalian warlords, brought down two of the US helicopters. Anyway, after watching the movie a couple of times carefully, because I really like it, I felt that no army, even if they are as great as the US army, would be able to take on its enemy successfully if they don’t have the resolve to risk their lives. After all, an army, which leaves their night vision gears, thinking that they would get back to their base within a few hours after successfully completing their military raid, planned nothing but some disastrous ending.
I think that it is a good movie because it is made subtly differently, where no one person is clearly singled out as a hero, unlike many other war movies we see. I also like the fact that the movie doesn’t make any effort to cheapen itself by putting unnecessary weight into one particular moment. Finally, I think that the movie also has slick cinematography, good visual effects and believable action (as opposed to some “super-human” ones). All in all, it is a great movie.
Sample Answer 2:
“A Beautiful Mind”, a Hollywood film that was released in 2001 was based on the story of a real person named John Nash. It is perhaps one of the best movies I have ever watched. The movie was directed by Ron Howard and he was inspired to make the movie from a book of the same title. For this cue card topic, I would like to talk about this movie.
The famous actor Russell Crowe acted as the main character of the movie, and he won an Oscar for the best actor for his superb role in this movie. The story of the film depicts the life, work and imagination of a young prodigy called John Nash who developed “paranoid schizophrenia” after he joins the secret cryptography work. He was a true genius, as well as a talented and gifted person, who had difficulties separating the hallucination and reality. But he worked towards defining the mathematical relationship that changed the world. Nash lived two lives – one was in his mind while the another was the life we call normal life. This film portrayed the life and work of a prodigy who had some mental illness, and yet contributed to the advancement of mathematics and the betterment of the world.
The movie told us the story of John Nash who was an interesting person in terms of his eccentricity, intelligence and talent. The acting, the production and the presentation of the movie were extraordinary. It was so nicely presented and acted that the majority of the critics gave a positive review of this movie just after it was released.
Similar Cue Card Topics
Your ability to talk about this Cue Card Topic would enable you to talk about the following Cue Card Topics as well:
- Describe your favourite movie.
- Describe a famous movie you have watched.
- Describe a movie you have recently watched.
- Describe a film you want to watch in future.