Denial * * * 1/2

      Denial was satisfying but not as exciting as I hoped it might be.

      American historian  Professor Deborah Lipstadt wrote a book in the late nineties and suggested that English historian David Irving had deliberately written something he knew not to be true, so that his readers might question whether Hitler had any part of the Holocaust, or that the Holocaust had even taken place.

Irving took umbrage at the suggestion that he had willfully lied and sued Professor Deborah Lipstadt and her publisher Penguin Books.

The Defence team.  "How the heck am 
I gonna pay this lot if I lose?"

      Although the trial was primarily about whether Irving deliberately lied, it’s ramifications reached much further, for if Irving could prove he had not lied or set out to mislead people, then the Holocaust itself could be cast into doubt.

     Other than a moving visit to Auschwitz, Denial is a very internal film, mostly set in solicitors offices, barristers chambers and the court.  The trial took place in Britain.

      Rachel Weisz plays Deborah Lipstadt the defendant, and to be honest I did not like her in the role.  I thought it was a poor fit and her exaggerated New York accent unconvincing.  Her tone made her come across as a working class gal who’d been done wrong rather than an academic with a serious argument..

       Although he looks nothing like David Irving Timothy Spall made a convincing David Irving type character.  The spirit was there.  He seemed to carry his prejudice like a physical burden.

      Tom Wilkinson plays a charming, immensely intelligent, wine slurping, cigarette smoking barrister who you'd like to have on your side.

      The actual trial took four years apparently, but it is truncated for the film to suggest it happened over a few weeks.  The upside of that is that it moves along at a good pace and simplifies the many arguments, allowing us to watch a logical and appropriate verdict emerge.