''War Book'' is a 2014 British

political Politics (from , ) is the set of activities that are associated with making decisions in groups, or other forms of power relations among individuals, such as the distribution of resources or status. The branch of social science that stud ...

drama film In film and television, drama is a category or genre of narrative fiction (or semi-fiction) intended to be more serious than humorous in tone. Drama of this kind is usually qualified with additional terms that specify its particular super ...

directed by Tom Harper and written by

Jack Thorne Jack Thorne FRSL (born 6 December 1978) is a British playwright, television writer, screenwriter, and producer. He is best known for writing the stage play '' Harry Potter and the Cursed Child'', the films '' Wonder'' and '' Enola Holmes'', ...

. The film features an ensemble cast, consisting of

Adeel Akhtar Adeel Akhtar (born 18 September 1980) is a British actor. In 2017, he won the British Academy Television Award for Best Actor for his role in ''Murdered by My Father''. He was also nominated for a BAFTA for Best Supporting Actor for his role o ...

, Nicholas Burns,

Ben Chaplin Ben Chaplin (born Benedict John Greenwood; 31 July 1969)''Births, Marriages & Deaths Index of England & Wales, 1916–2005.''; at ancestry.com is a British actor. He is best known for his roles in films, including ''The Truth About Cats & Dogs' ...

Shaun Evans Shaun Francis Evans (born 6 March 1980) is an English actor and director. He is best known for playing a young Endeavour Morse in the ITV drama series '' Endeavour''. Early life Shaun Francis Evans was born on 6 March 1980 into an Irish fam ...

Kerry Fox Kerry Lauren Fox (born 30 July 1966) is a New Zealand actress. She came to prominence playing author Janet Frame in the movie '' An Angel at My Table'' directed by Jane Campion, which gained her a Best Actress Award from the New Zealand Film and ...

Phoebe Fox Phoebe Fox (born 16 April 1987) is an English actress, who was nominated for Olivier and Evening Standard awards for work in theatre. She has appeared in the ''Black Mirror'' episode " The Entire History of You" (2011), '' The Woman in Black: A ...

Sophie Okonedo Sophie Okonedo (born 11 August 1968) is a British actress and narrator. The recipient of a Tony Award, she has been nominated for an Academy Award, three BAFTA Television Awards, a Golden Globe Award, and a Primetime Emmy Award. She began her f ...

Antony Sher Sir Antony Sher (14 June 1949 – 2 December 2021) was a British actor, writer and theatre director of South African origin. A two-time Laurence Olivier Award winner and a four-time nominee, he joined the Royal Shakespeare Company in 1982 a ...

(In his final film role before his death in 2021), and

Nathan Stewart-Jarrett Nathan Lloyd Stewart-Jarrett (born 4 December 1985) is a British actor, best known for starring as Curtis Donovan in the E4 series ''Misfits'' and as Ian in the Channel 4 series ''Utopia''. Early life Stewart-Jarrett was born in Wandsworth, ...

Plot

Over the course of three days, eight government officials, a Member of Parliament, and a political appointee participate in a war-game which has taken place regularly among British civil servants since the 1960s, as a way to help them formulate government procedure in the event of nuclear war. In the depicted meetings, set in 2014, the group discusses possible UK policy in the fictional event of a nuclear detonation in

Mumbai Mumbai (, ; also known as Bombay — List of renamed Indian cities and states#Maharashtra, the official name until 1995) is the capital city of the Indian States and union territories of India, state of Maharashtra and the ''de facto'' fin ...

, India by a Pakistani organisation.Variety, 15 October 2014: ''London Film Review: ‘War Book’''
Linked 2015-08-13

Cast

as Mo * Nicholas Burns as James *

as Gary *

as Tom *

as Maria *

as Kate *

as Philippa *

as David *

as Austin * Morgan Walters as Frank

Premiere and reception

The film was first shown on 13 October 2014, during the

London Film Festival The BFI London Film Festival is an annual film festival founded in 1957 and held in the United Kingdom, running for two weeks in October with co-operation from the British Film Institute. It screens more than 300 films, documentaries and sho ...

, saw a limited cinema release on 7 August 2015, and premiered on BBC Four only four days later, on 11 August 2015. On

review aggregator A review aggregator is a system that collects reviews of products and services (such as films, books, video games, software, hardware, and cars). This system stores the reviews and uses them for purposes such as supporting a website where users ...

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wang ...

, the film holds an approval rating of 75% based on 8 reviews, with an average rating of 7.67/10. '' Variety's'' Charles Gant found the film's dialogue somewhat theatrical and compared it to

Roger Donaldson Roger Lindsey Donaldson (born 15 November 1945) is an Australian-born New Zealand film director, producer and writer whose films include the 1981 relationship drama '' Smash Palace'', and a run of titles shot in the United States, including t ...

’s '' Thirteen Days'', which proved that "a talkathon rooted in a historical moment of genuine peril can be far more gripping than any invented drama, and many audiences may find the final act of "War Book" to be risibly paranoid by comparison." ''

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...

''s Mike McCahill felt that "theatricality looms, but the variation of voices and viewpoints among the expert cast generates a rat-a-tat momentum." '' The List''s Nikki Baughan was much more enthusiastic, comparing it to Sidney Lumet's 1957 classic ''

Twelve Angry Men ''Twelve Angry Men'' is an American courtroom drama written by Reginald Rose concerning the jury of a homicide trial. It was broadcast initially as a television play in 1954. The following year it was adapted for the stage. It was adapted for a ...

'', stating that "Jack Thorne's remarkable script is a masterclass in slow-burn tension, combining black-and-white facts with the murky greys of human emotion to drive home the fragility of social order in the face of incoming warheads."The List, 3 August 2015: ''War Book - Provocative and essential nuclear war-themed drama from Tom Harper''
Linked 2015-08-13

References

External links

* * * {{DEFAULTSORT:War Book 2014 films 2010s political drama films British political drama films Films set in 2014 Films directed by Tom Harper 2014 drama films Films with screenplays by Jack Thorne 2010s English-language films 2010s British films