Denial is shockingly relevant in 2017

IT’S a historical drama set in the late 1990s but there’s nothing passe about Denial, an uncomfortable reflection of the battles of 2017.

REVIEW

MANY of us still have vague memories of the sensational libel trial infamous Holocaust denier David Irving brought against American academic Deborah Lipstadt in the late 1990s.

Irving, a disgraced British historian and Hitler apologist, brought the suit against Lipstadt and her publishers after she called him in her book a racist and accused him of deliberately manipulating facts to suit his own prejudices.

The way the British justice system works, the onus was on Lipstadt and her legal team to prove she was right, not for Irving to prove that she was wrong.

The action effectively put the legitimacy of the Holocaust on trial.

While the events it depicts took place almost two decades ago, Denial is shockingly relevant to the odd place we find ourselves today.

Hearing Irving (played with sneering smugness by Timothy Spall) harass Lipstadt (Rachel Weisz) in one of her lectures, demanding she provide physical proof of the Holocaust is uncannily reminiscent of the inflammatory bile poured out of the mouths of alt-right conspiracy theorists. It’s uncomfortable watching.

Just last week, those lunatics were insisting that the sarin gas attack in Syria never happened — that it’s all staged by the US government to, I don’t know, brainwash the world through ballpoint pen ink or some other tripe.

Resolve and strength.

Denial is a scary reflection of our own current battles where truth has been distorted into a war of opinions even though fact is fact. But as we have seen so often recently, no matter how much proof you can produce, there is always someone who says it’s been manufactured.

In Denial, Irving is that guy — a dangerous demagogue with a vile agenda who puts himself in the same category as Winston Churchill, Edward Gibbon and Thucydides. Obviously, Irving’s denial is multifaceted.

Denial is a solid courtroom drama with wonderful performances, anchored by Weisz and Tom Wilkinson who portrays Richard Rampton, her barrister.

A handful of scenes between the two are the highlights of the film — they’re thoughtful, charged but calm and they give us the best insight into these two characters who have found themselves defending something thought irrefutable.

Tom Wilkinson with another fantastic performance in a career full of fantastic performances.

Andrew Scott (better known as Sherlock’s Moriarty) is equally enthralling as Anthony Julius, the solicitor who famously represented Princess Diana in her royal divorce.

For a legal drama, the film doesn’t spend too much in the courtroom itself — most of the time is given to dramas surrounding the trial preparation, including the disagreement over strategy, and a sequence filmed at Auschwitz.

What Denial didn’t do is examine the root causes behind the phenomena of conspiracy theorists and deniers beyond calling out their personal enmity towards a race or culture.

Perhaps that’s all it was in Irving’s case but one imagines when they make a movie about the more prominent voices on the fringe today, there would be more consideration given to why there is such a deep mistrust directed towards established facts.

Rating: 3/5

Denial is in cinemas from today.

Continue the conversation on Twitter with @wenleima.

There’s something very Peter Pettigrew about David Irving.

Originally published as Denial is shockingly relevant in 2017