It’s a potent moment for a film like “Words of War,” as press freedoms and other accoutrements of democracy seem to be under attack around the world. There remain few stronger recent-history illustrations of that threat than the case of Anna Politkovskaya, a prominent Russian journalist noted for her relentless exposure of government corruption and harmful policies, particularly around the Second Chechen War. Presumably in retaliation, she was assassinated two decades ago — on Vladimir Putin’s birthday, yet.
Politkovskaya certainly merits the admiring dramatic treatment accorded by “Words of War,” which counts Sean Penn among its executive producers. But this U.K. production, with Maxine Peake in the central role, earns more points for its noble intentions than artistic inspiration or raw impact. It’s a polished, pedestrian biopic, with direction by British TV veteran James Strong that smooths over instead of elevating Eric Poppen’s cliche-riddled script. While the subject matter is compelling, one hopes Politkovskaya can someday get a punchier, less formulaic screen treatment. Rolling Pictures is currently distributing the feature in U.S. theaters.
Beginning with the requisite fateful flash-forward, the film introduces Peake’s middle-aged Anna en route to the 2004 hostage crisis where she suffered effects from poisoning. Her plane returns to Moscow, but loved ones must hustle her out of one hospital on a gurney after realizing her safety is threatened there. Rewinding five years prior, we find her already a crusading reporter and columnist for the independent (i.e. non-state-controlled) newspaper Novaya Gazeta, which Mikhail Gorbachev helped found after the breakup of the Soviet Union. Her nose for injustice sniffs out scandalous truths, among both superrich oligarchs and public-welfare institutions like orphanages starved of sufficient funding.
Still, Anna’s notoriety is limited until editor-in-chief Dmitry Muratov (Ciaran Hinds) agrees to let her do on-the-ground reporting in Chechen, where the outbreak of new conflict with Russian forces has so far been viewed only through the lens of government propaganda. Her first trip into a war zone is jarring, but provides scant insight. On a second visit, however, she sheds her army supervision to take on a local guide (Fady El-Sayed as Anzor), who promises to show her what’s really going on. Anna’s horrified by the desperate, bombed-out conditions civilians are living in, and the atrocities they relate. Eventually she’s tipped to the site of an unmarked grave for over 150 massacred Chechens.
The accusatory articles by Anna have an immediate, negative effect. Her husband, Alexander (Jason Isaac), is fired from his high-profile broadcast job; their adult children (Harry Lawtey and Naomi Battrick) fret over her recklessness. Anonymous death threats, conspicuous surveillance and cautionary visits from a representative of the secret police (Ian Hart) soon follow. But the heat Anna is applying to the Kremlin gets attention from crucial bodies like the United Nations Security Council. When Chechen Islamist separatist rebels take control of Moscow’s Dubrovka Theater in October 2002, holding over 900 audience members hostage, they demand Anna as their negotiating intermediary.
That harrowing episode, which ended badly for many involved — due to tactics by Russian security services that Politkovskaya considered a betrayal — could easily sustain an entire film in itself. Here, it provides impetus for the kind of set-piece that can lend a fact-inspired drama a suspenseful, climactic payoff. But Strong, whose work has been primarily in small-screen series, doesn’t really seize that opportunity. And writer Poppen, whose previous produced scripts were modest genre efforts, finds no fresh take on such complicated events.
It’s understandable that the demands of a two-hour narrative should require some simplification. But “Words of War” (which ends with closing notes made without authorization from the Politkovskaya family or anyone else portrayed here) too often feels like an earnestly generic approach to a singular character. Its on-the-nose dialogue frequently boils down to variations on “Dammit Anna, must you be so gusty and uncompromising?!” There’s too much time spent on dull, repetitive family dynamics.
Despite Peake’s best efforts, her heroine comes off as a one-dimensional figure of brisk, corrective righteousness — an archetype that seems very English. Only the Chechen characters are allowed to sport any kind of accent. Elsewhere, pervasive high-tea speech tones and a lack of palpable Russian flavor (neither helped or hindered by Latvian location shooting) further adds to the sense that we are watching something resembling a BBC production.
The result is curiously stilted and unconvincing, even though it inevitably stirs the conscience. Lengthy end credits play out over a montage showing some among an estimated 1,500 journalists slain worldwide since the events depicted here. That message can hardly help but move the viewer. But like so much else in this handsomely produced, respectful yet inauthentic-feeling tribute, its delivery has the rote hand-wringing tenor of a deluxe charity fundraiser.