Director
Mike Leigh
(Another Year, Mr. Turner)

Starring
Rory Kinnear, Maxine Peake and Neil Bell
Have you ever wished that there was a two and a half hour movie version of live parliament Question Time? Well then Peterloo is the film for you! If however you are in the other 99.99999999999% of the population, then you might want to give a miss to this aurally draining snooze fest.

Peterloo sells itself on being the story of the 1819 Peterloo massacre in Manchester, where 18 people were killed and hundreds were injured at a peaceful protest regarding parliamentary representation reform. The reality of the film however is that the titular event itself was a minimal part of the film, which is astounding given the 154 minute running time. The rest of the film was taken up with verbal d*ck measuring and very little else.

To his credit, director Mike Leigh has produced a film that is impressively accurate to the linguistic stylings of its period, but what that translates to is a tediously wordy film that takes an age to make its point, which is also often hard to decipher. The attention to detail is something that should be the films strength, but in this case is actually its undoing. It’s the kind of film that will only really appeal to the most die-hard of historians, and will alienate most of the general public.

The film could have been saved with a more even balance of historical context and action, but there was just too much build up with no legitimate climax, leaving the audience with a cinematic version of blue-balls.

The mostly unknown cast did a tremendous job with the challenging script they were presented. The authenticity of the dialogue and delivery was commendable and probably the one redeeming feature of Peterloo.

Overall Peterloo is like a work of art that is praised for its technical achievement, but isn’t one you’d want to display in your home.

1.5 stars
Trailer
PETERLOO

Moviedoc thanks Miranda Brown Publicity for the invite to the screening of this film.

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