Jeremy Irons makes for a terrific and complicated Neville Chamberlain at the heart of this Netflix adaptation of Robert Harris’s bestselling 2017 novel. Working from a screenplay by National Theatre playwright Ben Power, Christian Schwochow, who has directed several features and key episodes of The Crown, opens with a flashback to earlier, happier Oxbridge days for Hugh Legat (George MacKay).
By 1938, and the spine of the drama, George is a far more serious chap. His marriage to Pamela (Jessica Brown Findlay) is not especially happy. His work in the diplomatic corps is consuming and thankless. Meanwhile, Europe is on the verge of war. Adolf Hitler is preparing to invade Czechoslovakia.
Hugh’s superiors in Chamberlain’s government continue to seek a peaceful solution. Hugh, accordingly, reconnects with Paul von Hartmann, a German diplomat and his chum from university. The two had fallen out over politics and Paul’s unyielding views on a “strong Germany”. Paul, however, has subsequently learned of the terrifying extent of the Führer’s plans.
There are plenty of costumes and production design to admire in this lush adaptation, even if certain modern flourishes – including Frank Lamm’s handheld camera and Isobel Waller-Bridge’s score – can teeter on the anachronistic. There are great character studies to marvel at too. Ulrich Matthes – who played Joseph Goebbels in Downfall and Henri Kremer, a Catholic priest imprisoned at Dachau in The Ninth Day – makes for an unnerving Hitler. His disdain for the younger, Oxford-educated von Hartmann is viciously articulated. August Diehl, who was so compelling and fun in The Young Karl Marx, plays one of Hitler’s inner circle as an outsized school bully. His playful wrestling and cajoling is never truly playful.
The screenplay and Irons’s clever performance leave Chamberlain open to interpretation. “So far as my personal reputation is concerned, I am not in the least disturbed about it,” the British prime minister once wrote. Munich: The Edge of War is more concerned than Chamberlain was. He’s bumbling and in error, but he’s equally traumatised by the first World War and the prospect of future conflict.
The film is at its best when it allows for complexity. Ironically, the project’s occasional attempts to pass itself off as a political thriller slow the material down. The run time doesn’t help. A worthwhile historical curio, nonetheless.
