DENIAL   3.2 ***

       Guilty until proven innocent ?!?! It's a concept that is inconceivable to Americans, yet it's the core of British Law in libel cases. When once respected British historian David Irving sues American scholar and educator Deborah Lipstadt for libel, based on her recent book that accused him of being a Holocaust denier, the burden falls to Lipstadt to prove not just that Irving's work was a purposeful lie, but that the Holocaust did in fact take place. In other words, if the words used in her book against Irving  are true, she would win the case.  But she has to prove that he was a racist, an anti-Semite and knowingly misrepresented the facts in his works as a Holocaust denier.

The movie begins with Ms. Lipstadt as a professor in 1994 at Emory University.  In 1996, the lawsuit by Irvin is filed in London. In preparation for the case , Lipstadt and Rampton visit Auschwitz in 1998. Though the courtroom drama and corresponding legal work takes up much of the film, it's this sequence filmed at Auschwitz that is the heart and soul of the film. Very little melodrama is added … the scenes and the setting speak for themselves and here the cinematography is  absolutely perfect in capturing the vast haunting terror of the place. The trial finally starts in 2000, and as always, it's fascinating to compare the British court of law and process with that of the United States. The formality is on full display, but nuance and showmanship still play a role.  

Rachel Weisz plays Lipstadt as an intelligent and determined woman who refuses to back down from a racist bully like Irwin. Andrew Scott is magnetic as the highly  intelligent Solicitor,  Anthony Julius,   who lays out a defense strategy with a very troublesome requirement for Lipstad: that neither she nor any Holocaust survivors are to testify in the trail. Julius has good moral and tactical reasons for this, and he's at his most emotional trying to explain and defend it to Lipstadt.  Tom Wilkinson is terrific as Richard Rampton, the barrister who puts on the powdered wig and brilliantly presents the case in court. And  then there is Timothy Spall who makes for a perfect villain. He gives us both Irving the charmer and Irving the charlatan -- the expertise, the intellect, the eloquence, but also the malice, the misdirection, the sexism.

As a guide to how historians actually work, and as a guide to the wacky/false world spun by Holocaust deniers, the film is on its firmest ground.  Also the film succeeds in going far beyond a single legal case to raise important questions about the Holocaust and even show an application to today's world. "Denial" offers a unique opportunity for reflection and discussion rarely to be found in a mainstream motion picture.

Rated PG-13 for thematic material (?) and brief strong language ( the “F” word is used once). |    

Clark