David Irving (Timothy Spall) is a self educated British historian who wrote numerous tomes based on his studies of the archives in which he decided or rather concluded that the Holocaust has been a bit exaggerated by the Jews. Rachel Weisz plays Deborah Lipstadt who in 1996 he sued for libel at the High Court in London. His case was that she had denigrated him and his works in her book about Holocaust denial.
If you are accused of libel in the UK then you have to prove that what you said was true (one of the defences). It is what is known as justification. Penguin books appointed a sterling defence team who decided that they would put history on trial and use this as a vehicle to debunk Mr Irving for once and for all. What follows is essentially a court based drama.
Now this is a good film. It is from the BBC but they are wont to play to the galleries these days and that is what happens here. It is overly emotional and despite a stellar cast that includes John Sessions, Tom Wilkinson and Mark Gatiss it never quite equals the sum of its parts. Rachel Weisz is an excellent actress but she does over play it in some scenes but then manages to pull it back. Timothy Spall is the most consistent and believable of all in a role which continues to demonstrate his virtuosity as an actor. All in all a film that is very much worth seeing.
If you are accused of libel in the UK then you have to prove that what you said was true (one of the defences). It is what is known as justification. Penguin books appointed a sterling defence team who decided that they would put history on trial and use this as a vehicle to debunk Mr Irving for once and for all. What follows is essentially a court based drama.
Now this is a good film. It is from the BBC but they are wont to play to the galleries these days and that is what happens here. It is overly emotional and despite a stellar cast that includes John Sessions, Tom Wilkinson and Mark Gatiss it never quite equals the sum of its parts. Rachel Weisz is an excellent actress but she does over play it in some scenes but then manages to pull it back. Timothy Spall is the most consistent and believable of all in a role which continues to demonstrate his virtuosity as an actor. All in all a film that is very much worth seeing.