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When I was writing up my impressions of Robert Harris’ Munich, I noted that it was “currently” in production as a motion picture. I promptly forgot that information. I was thus taken by surprise when Netflix suggested that I might want to watch their new “original content” feature Munich: The Edge of War. They didn’t pitch it as an adaptation of the Harris book but I quickly put zwei und zwei together.

Normally, I refrain from watching content as Netflix adds it, rather favoring prioritizing shows as they are taken away. However, it seemed to me that the closer my viewing is to my reading the book, the better I could evaluate the latter with respect to the former.

Short answer? There is something missing.

I’m not even sure what it was. We all appreciate that trying to film a book verbatim is going to cause problems. So while the film version is a bit different, it isn’t that it has in any way lost touch with the source material.

Part of it may be that it is more difficult to dramatize the relationship themes that underpin the political story. If we are witness to Hugh Legat’s inner thoughts about his lost love and his failing marriage, we understand how that drives him. If this needs to be illustrated on film… well, even I got a little confused; and that having read the book.

Hitler reacts to the choice of actor to portray him.

Is there something off about the casting? Hugh Legat’s George MacKay probably does work, although I initially wasn’t sure about him. On the other hand, I started off very excited about Jeremy Irons, who seemed like a perfect choice to play the British Prime Minister. Somehow, though, when he started speaking I heard only his counterfeit* Lehman Brothers CEO persona. Maybe he was too much actor for the role? And don’t get me started on that weird-lookin’ Hitler. They took Downfall‘s fairly convincing Joseph Goebbels (right rear in the above video) and stuck a mustache on him? It doesn’t work for me.

I’m also tempted to find fault with the changes in the story. Legat’s wife isn’t cheating on him, she simply feels neglected because he puts the Prime Minister of the British Empire before their relationship. It’s not that the story was ruined or even changed substantially. Anyway, as I said, the details of convoluted relationships are much harder to portray visually versus literarily. Nonetheless, if you take away Legat’s intense personal involvement with the various parties, what remains? He tries to get some secret information to Chamberlain but, having successfully done so, Chamberlain ignores it and does what he was going to do anyway. Is that really worth a movie?

I also (as I allude to with my title) detected some never-Trump allegory being shoved at me with this one. I was forced to recall, however, that I thought the same thing when I started reading Harris’ book. As I said then, that impression melted away as progressed through the novel. The similar impression from the film is a little more emphatic and it is less likely I’m projecting. I’ll repeat that this is not, to my mind, a misrepresentation of Harris’ views – he probably is anti-Trump, even if he never meant his opinion on US politics to color his story in Munich. Maybe more to the point, for a film coming out in 2021, the Trump-is-literally-Hitler schtick seems more than a bit worn.

The other Harris theme that was made more obvious in the film is one that I didn’t really think about with the book. Now that the movie is out and popular, there are more critiques and writers giving us backstory. One piece of that backstory is that Harris has always felt that Chamberlain was unjustly tainted with his failure to “stop Hitler” when he had the chance. Harris wrote Munich, at least in some small part, to show support for Chamberlain’s decision.

As I told you, this theme was a major contributor to my enjoyment of the book. I saw it more as a revisionist viewpoint than an attempt to somehow prove that Chamberlain was right all along. Part of this is that we all “know” that Chamberlain failed so spectacularly that, to this day, he remains the archetypal appeaser. Yet, inside Chamberlain’s own head, he was not weak and afraid to confront Hitler. It useful to have Harris explain why Chamberlain may have thought Chamberlain was right. Another part of it is that I’ve been convinced that Czechoslovakia’s own version of a Maginot line might well have been the best place to defeat Hitler’s Germany while the cost of war was low. Furthermore, Harris’ inclusion of the “Oster Conspiracy” or “September Conspiracy” – the plotting by high-ranking German officers to remove Hitler from office if he started a war – certainly makes it clear in hindsight that Chamberlain made the wrong choice. I feel Harris, and to a lesser extent Munich: The Edge of War, showed us the full array of interpretations.

I’ve read some really negative reviews about this film and most seemed focused on this last point. Some, not knowing that Harris writes historical fiction, are angry that lesser-educated Netflix viewers might mistake this drama for documentary. Another reacted to the very last pre-credit title screen that suggested Chamberlain may have ultimately “won” World War II by delaying the opening of the conflict and giving Britain more time to prepare. While I agree this is an absurd assertion, I wouldn’t let it ruin the movie for me all by itself.

In the end, I have to wonder if I wouldn’t have appreciated Munich: The Edge of War more if I had come into it cold. That misplaced suspense I had when reading the novel was entirely gone. I knew that the film was going to, inserted fictional characters aside, follow the larger historical arc. Chamberlain inevitably would assure his nation of “peace in our time.” Hitler would survive and go on to ravage Europe. General Hans Oster and the fictional conspiratorial-proxy Paul von Hartman would also survive their plot, even if only to eventually plot again and die in their future attempt. Without the suspense, where is the story? Maybe that’s why some interpreted it as a bad docudrama with ahistorical distractions.

I don’t hate it but I much prefer the book.

*Jeremy Irons played the fictional CEO of the fictional investment bank in the film Margin Call. It has been pointed out that Irons’ character’s name “John Tuld” sounds really, really similar to the CEO of Lehman Bros., Richard Fuld. Irons delivers a powerful performance that captures the essence of a “Master of the Universe” about to flush the whole world down the toilet to save his own skin. Neville Chamberlain should not sound like a Master of the Universe.