Denial

A real case: in 2000, at the High Court in London, the writer David Irving brought a libel action against the American academic Deborah Lipstadt, who had described him as a Holocaust denier in a book published in 1994. The legal detail at the centre is this: in English libel law the burden of proof lies with the defendant. So Lipstadt and her team had to prove that Irving had lied, which meant documenting the reality of the Holocaust in court. The defence strategy was contentious: the lawyers wanted neither Lipstadt nor any survivor to be called as a witness, in order to deny Irving the chance to cross-examine them. The film's best scenes are the arguments over that decision. The trial ran from 11 January to 11 April 2000. Rachel Weisz plays Lipstadt, Tom Wilkinson the barrister Richard Rampton and Timothy Spall plays Irving. David Hare wrote it and Mick Jackson directed. A strong choice for anyone who likes courtroom drama and arguments about historical truth. For a viewer wanting an emotional peak it is deliberately cold; the actual matter is documents and footnotes.