THE STORY – Based on a true story, “Words of War” follows world-renowned journalist and human rights activist Anna Politkovskaya on her brave crusade, fighting to be an independent voice of truth for the Russian people, putting her own life in jeopardy despite numerous acts of intimidation and violence.
THE CAST – Maxine Peake, Ciarán Hinds, Jason Isaacs, Naomi Battrick, Harry Lawtey & Fady El-Sayed
THE TEAM – James Strong (Director) & Eric Poppen (Writer)
THE RUNNING TIME – 119 Minutes
The final image of the new biopic, “Words of War,” is a wall of photographs with the caption: “Since [2006], more than 1500 journalists have been murdered for pursuing a story.” There are several famous faces on that wall, like slain journalists Daniel Pearl and Jamal Khashoggi. Still, among those murdered reporters, few have proven to be more consequential over the last two decades than Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya.
“Words of War” chronicles Anna’s career as she begins to cover the Russian war in Chechnya in 1999. Anna (Maxine Peake), already a distinguished journalist, is assigned initially to cover the conflict from the point of view of the Chechen people by Dmitry Muratov (Ciarán Hinds), her editor at Noveya Gazeta (“The New Newspaper”), an independent outlet originally bankrolled by former Soviet Premier Mikhail Gorbachev to offer an alternative point of view.
Upon her arrival in Chechnya, she is met with a hail of gunfire as she travels to the war zone, as well as a populace unwilling to speak to a Russian journalist. It is only when she tells her Russian chaperone to take a hike and stays behind alone in a village that she impresses Anzor (Fady El-Sayed), a local leader who convinces his neighbors to open themselves up to her. What Anna hears about the atrocities they are suffering shocks her, and once she recognizes the barbarous acts committed in the name of Russian President Vladimir Putin, she shifts her focus to expose Putin’s efforts to consolidate power at the expense of the Chechen people. She also succeeds in putting a target on her back.
Anna’s new confrontational approach also worries her family – her husband Alexander “Sasha” Politkovsky (Jason Isaacs), a popular television news journalist, her daughter Vera (Naomi Battrick), and son Ilya (Harry Lawtey) – all of whom beg her to reconsider each time she suits up to return to the war zone. But despite being harassed and even physically assaulted, Anna’s compassionate return visits begin to earn the trust of the Chechen people, who start to celebrate her as their champion, which puts her on a collision course with Putin.
Given the international force that Putin has become in recent years, screenwriter Eric Poppen is given a lot of contemporary parallels to add within Anna’s story. Yet he and director James Strong have opted to follow the tried-and-true template for Historical Biopic 101, with one predictable beat after another, reducing any hope of an inspiring surprise that might spark the proceedings to life. In this sense, “Words of War” follows similar themes and narrative beats as last year’s female-journalist-under-fire offering, “Lee,” starring Kate Winslet, in which a sterling central performance is surrounded by a film that’s not up to her standards.
Like Winslet in that film, Peake consistently rises above her material, creating a journalist who never loses her outrage at the cruelty displayed by those in power or her empathy toward those victims who must bear the brunt of it. Even as the storytelling becomes, at times, mundane, Peake consistently surprises with her choices – an unexpected line reading here, a spontaneous gesture there – that consistently keep us engaged, particularly in the drama’s major set pieces.
This is particularly true in the film’s main centerpiece, Strong’s recreation of the 2002 siege at Moscow’s Dubrovka Theater, where armed Chechen rebels held 912 theatergoers hostage. As talks with the Russian authorities break down, the rebels demand that the only Russian to whom they would be willing to talk is Anna. Much to her family’s horror, she agrees to serve as a negotiator (Strong’s direction is particularly potent in these scenes, framing Anna as a solitary figure in an empty square, cautiously approaching the theater’s front door). Once inside, she is shocked to see Chechens, who had once met her with open arms, now brandishing automatic weapons. Peake’s work is particularly powerful in these scenes, conveying Anna’s challenge in keeping herself together as the fate of hundreds of people is in her hands.
The film is less successful, however, in its domestic scenes. Isaacs’ Sasha is initially presented as a self-confident star in his own firmament and happy for his wife’s success. But when her renown begins to eclipse his, and he loses his job because of Anna’s activism, Poppen’s script has him crawling into a bottle and, disappointingly, largely disappearing from the film. Battrick and Lawtey fare little better as her children, each being given a big moment but otherwise burdened with largely one-note characters.
Of the large cast, it’s Hinds who most effectively goes toe-to-toe with Peake’s Anna. His Dmitry is an editor who is as passionate about journalism as he is about the people who bravely put themselves on the line to get to the truth. Yet even his enormous respect for Anna has its limits – in one of the film’s best scenes, he rips into her when he perceives that she’s putting her own interests ahead of what’s good for the paper. Their scenes together have an electricity that is often missing throughout the rest of the film.
The film’s techs are solid. Mike Eley’s cinematography captures the kind of blue-grey misty look so often associated with Russia, and Crispian Sallis’s production design succinctly works to create Anna’s world both at home and in her office. In addition, the film’s editing by David Charap is crisp and effective, particularly during Anna’s climactic assassination scene.
Even as much of the film clings to the standard biopic playbook, its themes and the example set by the life of Anna Politkovskaya is a timely reminder of the vitally critical role that a free press plays in exposing the actions of oligarchs who are intent on amassing power at any cost, whether it be in a far-away country or even close to home.
