Name: Denial
Genre: Drama, True Story & Biography, Historical
Released: 2016
Duration: T1H50M
Cast: Rachel Weisz, Andrew Scott, Timothy Spall, Tom Wilkinson, Mark Gatiss

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Courtroom drama from the director of The Bodyguard, starring Academy Award-winner Rachel Weisz as a writer being sued for libel by a renowned Holocaust denier (Timothy Spall).

"David Irving (Spall), once a well-regarded military historian, courted controversy when he began citing the pseudoscientific Leuchter report as proof that the Holocaust was a hoax. Lipstadt (Weisz) explicitly labelled him a denier in her 1993 book Denying the Holocaust, and he sued her for libel. But since the burden of proof in English libel law lies with the accused, it bizarrely fell to Lipstadt and her legal team to demonstrate that one of the defining events of the century did indeed transpire." (Toronto International Film Festival)

2016Rating: M, Occasional coarse language110 minsUSA, UK

DramaTrue Story & BiographyHistorical

All Reviews (9)

Director:: Mick Jackson ('The Bodyguard', 'Volcano', 'L.A. Story')
Writer:: David Hare
Cast:: Rachel WeiszAndrew ScottTimothy SpallTom WilkinsonMark GatissHarriet WalterJack LowdenAlex JenningsCaren PistoriusJohn Sessions

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Denial / Reviews

Flicks, Paul Casserly

Rachel Weisz finds the prickly heart of Lipstadt, replete with a Queens accent, even if she’s effectively silenced as the defence team pursues a tactic that puts Irving on trial and forbids Lipstadt or any Auschwitz survivors from testifying. Lipstadt wants to attack the case all guns blazing, she wants American balls-out bluster, but the reserved Brits convince her otherwise. That Brit/Yank divide is mined amusingly throughout, with Lipstadt telling a stateside colleague that the judge (that master of the quivering upper lip, Alex Jennings) looked “like something straight out of Masterpiece Theatre”.

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Variety

The crucial thing missing is what should be the essence of a courtroom drama: our immersion in how Lipstadt's lawyers stake out their strategy.

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The New York Times

You wonder if the material would have been more effective as a courtroom procedural adapted for the stage.

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The Guardian

Patches of it are so ludicrously hammy it plays like one of those unbearably corny fake films teased at the beginning of Tropic Thunder.

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Stuff

A compelling courtroom drama peppered with some truly sublime performances.

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Los Angeles Times

Because Hare's script grapples with serious themes and singular events whose ramifications are still being felt, it is effective when it counts.

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Hollywood Reporter

A compelling, true courtroom drama touches on the lingering pain of the Holocaust.

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FilmInk

The court hearings are almost unbelievable and yet are lifted, verbatim, from the records.

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Collider

It's frustrating to see a movie that's so perfect for the age in which we live and yet bungles its narrative so completely.

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