War and Peace

I’ve never read all 1225 pages of Leo Tolstoy’s War and Peace, but I can’t imagine the choices writer Andrew Davies had to make in compressing it down to 6 episodes for the BBC.

The novel is frequently touted as amongst the longest in the world, meaning all manner of sub-plots and characters may have been considered. What I can say is the finished product works as a cohesive, entertaining saga on a grand scale.

In fact you could arguably turn down the sound and just feast your eyes upon the costumes and stately building (it was filmed in Russia & Lithuania). But then you would be denied the drama and performances.

Opening with Anna Pavlovna Scherer’s (Gillian Anderson) soiree in St. Petersburg, 1805, director Tom Harper artfully introduces us to key players with choreographed camera-work. Prince Vassily Kuragin (Stephen Rea) explains that Pierre Bezukhov (Paul Dano) is the illegitimate son of a dying aristocrat. The socially-awkward Pierre is an admirer of Napoleon’s revolution, advocating freedom, liberty of speech and fraternity. But his liberal views are at odds with those around him, especially given the French emporer is marching upon Russia.

His colleague Andrei Bolkonsky (James Norton) is determined to take the fight to the frontline, despite his wife Marya (Jessie Buckley) due to give birth.

“I can’t breathe here Pierre. I might as well getting myself killed fighting Napoleon,” he tells his friend.

In Moscow, Natasha (Lily James) is a teen searching for true love, placating her melancholy sister Sonya (Aisling Loftus) as she pines over another. Whilst Natasha’s prospective beau Boris (Aneurin Barnard) is headed off to war, she is also drawn to the young Pierre.

But Pierre’s life is about to undergo a massive change when his father dies and leaves him vast wealth -watching Prince Vassily deviously try to kill off a will is one of the opening episode’s pleasures.

“We deceive so much, and for what? Everything ends in death. Everything,” Vassily laments.

Also worth acknowledging in the opening chapter is Andrei’s father Prince Nikolai Bolkonsky (Jim Broadbent), a cantankerous, overbearing father unable to express emotion.

But it is Paul Dano as Pierre who is the pick of the bunch in this sprawling tale. His boyish looks and awkward demeanour are at odds with the position he inherits and the arc he traverses. Occasional flashbacks, dream sequences and poetically-crafted scenes of introspection draw us towards him and help give the piece a screen-language that fits with modern audiences.

Stephen Rea also makes a duplicitous Vassily, coaching the young Pierre into Russian aristocracy but with his own agenda in hand.

Lastly there are grand battle scenes with General Mikhail Kutuzov (Brian Cox) doomed to oversee the death of young soldiers at the hands of Napoleon’s troops.

“They call me the general who doesn’t like to fight,” he concedes.

The battle scenes are suitably violent if not quite the spectacle of a gory Game of Thrones.

Visually, this is all very sumptuous, dripping in lavish costumes (start counting the nominations now), filmed from stately ballrooms to snowy streets and lush countrysides. These give the series a true romantic backdrop.

If there is any criticism, it is the lack of Russian accents. Most of these aristocrats could be easily at home in Downton Abbey (I even heard mention of “Awstria” at one point). Despite not having read the novel, I can’t help but feel this is Russia through British eyes where the melodrama and romance come to the fore, perhaps ahead of politics and status.

That said, it means I can put off those 1225 pages a little longer and still appreciate its scope. Don’t miss it.

War and Peace begins 8:30pm Sunday January 31 on BBC First.