British journalist-turned-novelist Robert Harris has written numerous works of suspenseful historical fiction, several of which have been transformed into equally tension-laden films; 2001’s Enigma and 2010’s The Ghost Writer immediately come to mind.
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| British Prime Minister Neville Chamerlain (Jeremy Irons, seated) goes over newspaper reports of German activities with his aide and translator, Hugh Legat (George MacKay). |
The result so cunningly blurs the line between fact and fiction, that it’s often difficult to determine which is which.
This story also has extremely disturbing parallels to current real-world events, which evoke Spanish philosopher George Santayana’s timeless quote: “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”
A brief prologue, set in 1932, introduces reserved Brit Hugh Legat (George MacKay) and passionate German Paul von Hartman (Jannis Niewöhner), who’ve bonded during their university years at Oxford. Both clearly love the impish Lenya (Liv Lisa Fries), although she’s probably too free-spirited for the buttoned-down Hugh.
Events shift to the autumn of 1938. Hugh has become a civil servant attached to British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain (Jeremy Irons), in offices also occupied by the latter’s principal private secretary, Sir Osmund Cleverly (Mark Lewis Jones); Permanent Under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs Sir Alexander Cadogan (Nicholas Farrell); and senior government official Sir Horace Wilson (Alex Jennings).
(All, with the exception of Legat, are key historical figures.)
Paul has become a German diplomat and clandestine anti-Nazi. He and Hugh haven’t spoken or seen each other during the past several years (for reasons revealed in a later flashback).
Tension is high, because Adolf Hitler has mobilized forces at the Czech border, with the intention of claiming the Sudetenland, a region with 3 million Germans. Should this take place, the British and French will be forced to unite and defend the Czechs, plunging Europe into war.
With the horrors of World War I still fresh in every British citizen’s mind, this is not a desirable outcome.
Chamberlain, desperate to keep his country out of war, decides that if Britain and France agree to let Hitler take the Sudetenland, he can be persuaded to cease further hostilities. In short, Chamberlain — apparently content to throw the Czechs under a bus — naïvely believes that Hitler will behave like an honorable gentleman.
Paul and his anti-Nazi colleagues are firmly against such appeasement, believing that if the Sudentenland is taken by force, it will result in a backlash by the majority of Germans who — at this point in time — also don’t want war, thereby triggering Hitler’s arrest and/or assassination.
More to the point, Paul knows full well that Hitler is a monster: a dangerously charismatic megalomaniac whose lust for power knows no bounds. (Sound familiar?)
But how to persuade Chamberlain to change his mind? That answer lands in Paul’s lap when his office colleague and lover, Helen Winter (Sandra Hüller), hands him a stolen document that summarizes Hitler’s intention to take over all neighboring countries.
Paul gets a message to London’s SIS/MI6, requesting that Hugh be assigned to Chamberlain’s staff during the upcoming Munich conference on September 30. That will give Paul — also assigned to the conference — a chance to give the document to Hugh, who in turn can pass it along to Chamberlain.
(Such a set of documents did exist: the Hossbach Memorandum, which summarized the radical expansionist plans that Hitler made during a Berlin meeting in November 1937.)
Trouble is, Hugh hasn’t the faintest desire — or skill set — to become a spy. Nor is Paul comfortable walking into the lion’s den, particularly when he winds up in close proximity to Franz Sauer (August Diehl), a long-ago school “friend” (read: sadistic bully) now part of Hitler’s SS bodyguard detail.
We obviously know what eventually happened, but that doesn’t minimize the edge-of-the-seat suspense that Schwochow and Power generate, as we get increasingly nervous about what’ll happen to Hugh, Paul and Helen Winter. And — equally troubling — what has become of Lenya?
MacKay is just right as Hugh, as his crisp diligence slowly dissolves into nervous uncertainty. MacKay’s normally placid expression becomes agonized, as Hugh’s desire to “do the right thing” wars with instinct for self-preservation. This is key to his relationship with Paul, who has long insisted that Hugh is too complacent and reserved: characteristics also putting a strain on Hugh’s relationship with his wife, Pamela (Jessica Brown Findlay, a touch too shrill and judgmental, given the circumstances).
MacKay is well remembered for his starring role in director Sam Mendes’ brilliant 1917, thereby involving the young actor in both world wars. (His most dramatic moment in that earlier film involved a climactic, pell-mell sprint amidst friendly and enemy fire; I was amused to see that he has a similar, mad-dash running scene here.)
Niewöhner is MacKay’s polar opposite. Paul is fervent, obsessive, frequently loud and apt to behave impetuously. Where Hugh must persuade himself to be bold, Paul has trouble controlling his reckless impulses. Niewöhner is every inch the sort of guy who’d join protest movements and do everything in his power, to prevent justice and fairness from being subverted.
This story’s approach to Chamberlain is wholly at odds with the established view of the gullible fool who believed he could outsmart Hitler, and is historically notorious for his “triumphant” insistence that he had achieved “peace for our time.” Irons makes the man gruff but benevolent, forthright but sensitive: all in all, thoroughly charming … a quality that absolutely couldn’t be applied to the actual man.
Perhaps most jarring, Chamberlain’s behavior is shaded as heroic, which is apt to thoroughly annoy a lot of viewers across the pond.
Ulrich Matthes’ Adolf Hitler is flat-out scary, with a sinister bearing and reptilian gaze that seems to look into not just the screen characters’ souls, but also those of us viewers.
Helen Winter is an impeccably well-sculpted character, and Hüller’s quiet, frightened performance is a masterpiece of subtlety. Anjli Mohindra, well remembered as one of the young stars of the Doctor Who spinoff, The Sarah Jane Adventures, has matured well into a telling role here as Joan, an accomplished aide who takes a protective interest in Hugh.
The film’s sense of time and place feels thoroughly authentic, thanks to Tim Pannen’s impeccable production design. The verisimilitude is heightened further by the fact that much of the third act filming is in the actual building where the Munich conference took place.
Although countless films have depicted the Nazis’ cruel debasement of German Jews, such scenes still carry a sickening jolt. There aren’t many here — Schwochow and Power don’t linger exploitatively — but their impact is significant.
In this film’s production notes, Harris bluntly draws parallels to current events: “I think the 1930s do offer lessons for our time, and they’re not comforting lessons either, because, in the end, these character don’t avert a war, they don’t save humanity. The film does serve, in a way, as a warning to us today.”
That notwithstanding, this also is a crackling thriller that holds our attention to the final frame.
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