How to beat a Holocaust denier in court in a gripping suspense drama coming to HBO Max

Deborah Lipstadt is an expert historian in Judaism who raised a great dust when he published ‘The denial of the Holocaust’, a book in which he spoke of this phenomenon and accused popular historians such as David Irving of denialism, who held the thesis that Hitler did not know that the extermination of the Jews was taking place. Irving’s reaction was to sue her for libel, and Lipstadt set out to defend herself in court without the testimony of a single survivor.

That is what Lipstadt told in his book ‘History on Trial: My Day in Court with a Holocaust Denier’, and it is what the splendid ‘Denial‘, which you can see in hbo max, Movistar Plus+ Y filmin. The, on paper, paradoxical situation, was faced with the need to demonstrate in court a series of very complex situations in relation to how we see history today.

All this, and although in legal terms the situation was tremendously complex, it is perfectly explained in ‘Negation’, which makes very complex legal labyrinths accessible, and pone on the table such fascinating topics as knowing that something happened is not the same as prove it, or if freedom of expression really protects any type of expression. And it rounds out the plot with elements of trial films and a certain style of suspense film that smoothes the edges of a plot that in other less capable hands would have been less affordable.

The merit, apart from the always effective Mick Jones directing, goes to David Hare, an expert screenwriter in complicated literary adaptations, such as ‘Wound’, ‘The Reader’ or ‘The Hours’. For these last two he was nominated for two Oscars for best screenplay. The creative team is completed by an excellent cast, including two veterans like Rachel Weisz in the role of Lipstadt and Timothy Spall in the role of Irving.