Four stars. Rated PG-13, for dramatic intensity, disturbing images and brief profanity
By Derrick Bang
This film fascinates in all sorts
of ways.
Most notably — and, obviously,
the reason it was made — director Mick Jackson’s absorbing, rigorously faithful
drama shines a necessary spotlight on longtime Holocaust denier David Irving,
and the shameful lengths to which he went, in an effort to legitimize his odious
beliefs.
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| As Deborah Lipstadt (Rachel Weisz) watches nervously, QC Richard Rampton (Tom Wilkinson, standing) prepares to address another of sham historian David Irving's deplorable claims. |
American viewers — at least,
those who didn’t devour the escapades of John Mortimer’s Rumpole of the Bailey — will be equally intrigued, possibly even
astonished, by this film’s well-crafted depiction of the British legal system,
and specifically how it differs from the U.S. court system, with respect to
libel suits.
Most impressively, though,
scripter David Hare — adapting historian Deborah E. Lipstadt’s memoir, Denial: Holocaust History on Trial — has
crafted a parallel dilemma that focuses on Lipstadt herself, played superbly
here by Rachel Weisz. Lipstadt’s struggle to remain true to her own conscience
and principles, and her reluctant recognition that she must — simply must — have faith in others, is just as
compelling as the courtroom duel that dominates the film’s second half.
The title, therefore, is
deliberately double-barreled: As well as signifying Irving’s standing as an unrepentant
Holocaust denier, it also represents the tremendously difficult choice that
must be made by the passionate, fiery and independent Lipstadt, to swallow her
pride and deny a public outlet for her own righteous indignation.
We know the legal outcome; it’s
obvious — given Hare’s source material — even for viewers who didn’t follow the
case, while it unfolded during the final four years of the 20th century. But
few outside of Lipstadt’s friends and inner circle would have known how this
case affected her on a personal level; Hare and Weisz give us an intimate and
thoroughly absorbing view of how Lipstadt faced this challenge, and — with the
help of a superb legal team — ultimately triumphed.
The case began with a whisper in
1993, with the publication of Lipstadt’s book, Denying the Holocaust. She acknowledged Irving within those pages,
briefly but trenchantly, labeling him a Holocaust denier, a racist, and a
falsifier of history.
(It’s important to understand
that although Irving’s charitable views of Hitler and Nazism never were taken
seriously by mainstream historians, he was a tireless writer, having published
more than two dozen books. Regardless of how he was regarded by the world,
Irving viewed himself as a serious academic and valid historian.)
