“More personal than polemic”. Executive producer Sean Penn’s description of Words Of War is on the money. While this biopic about journalist Anna Politkovskaya, possibly an unknown name to many in the West, doesn’t have a political axe to grind as such, it has other things on its mind, particularly Anna herself and the other 1700+ journalists who have been murdered in the past 25 years for simply doing their job.

Played in the film by Maxine Peake, she worked for Russian newspaper Novaya Gazeta. It was a publication that stood alone, founded by Mikhail Gorbachev to provide independent journalism free from the constraints of government control, and Politkovskaya had already established a reputation for covering social issues. Sent to Chechnya to cover the war – her editor didn’t want “a war correspondent: everyone’s got one of those. We need a people correspondent.” – her dispatches about the crimes and atrocities committed by the Russian army attracted widespread attention, from international organisations which publicly recognised her work to the government itself. She was assassinated in 2006 in the lift of the apartment block where she lived.

Covering the war and uncovering its realities was dangerous enough in itself, but the government pressure was more personal: she was threatened, abused, and poisoned, and her husband, Sasha (Jason Isaacs), a high-profile TV journalist, suddenly became unemployable. Anna was also persuaded to negotiate with the Chechen separatists who had taken over 900 hostages at the Dubrovka Theatre in Moscow: the subsequent storming of the building by Russian security services made her appear complicit. And, while Words Of War is essentially conventional in its structure and approach to the story, its strengths come from Anna’s relationships with people, from her family and colleagues to the people she tries to help in Chechnya.

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The scenes with her husband and children alternate between love and frustration, with her son Ilya (Harry Lawtey) especially upset and angered by the nature of her job and the dangers that go with it. Sasha, on the other hand, knows he cannot prevent her involving herself in the conflict and, albeit reluctantly, has to compromise. Peake and Isaacs are an engaging and convincing double act in roles that bring out the best in them. By way of contrast, her relationship with her editor, Dimitry (Ciaran Hinds), is a fascinating mix of respect and fire: he admires her talents as a journalist but never holds back when she lets her heart rule her head. Perhaps most moving of all, though, are the scenes with Chechen civilians who avoid talking to her and can’t even look her in the eyes. Past experiences with journalists working for a propaganda machine have cast a long shadow.

Peake’s facial expressions in those scenes speak volumes. Anna’s empathy is sincere and gradually helps her gain their trust, and can tell their story to the wider world. The only story that we don’t hear in Words Of War is what exactly drives her to risk her life by defying the authorities to report on the conflict. And it leaves a conspicuous gap in what is otherwise a solid narrative. That the film’s timing is acutely appropriate goes without saying. The fact that the Novaya Gazeta folded in 2022 after its license was taken away points to a greater darkness that Anna would have fought against vociferously. Thankfully, there are many others who, regardless of the potential cost, who can and will.

★★★ 1/2

In selected cinemas for one day on June 27^th,  on digital from June 30^th / Maxine Peake, Jason Isaacs, Ciaran Hinds, Ellie Bamber, Harry Lawtey / Dir: James Strong / Signature Entertainment / 15

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