Warning: This review contains spoilers for all four episodes of Litvinenko
Truth is stranger than fiction, they say – and Litvinenko shows why this is a gift to crime dramas. So often fictional crime dramas try to be too slick, too perfectly believable, but real life is messier, more mundane, more ridiculous than what most of us can imagine, and all the better for it.
Litvinenko doesn’t muck about, either – after the briefest of glimpses into what normal life looks like for the Litvinenko family in 2006 within five minutes we’re in hospital, and a wan, now-bald Litvinenko (David Tennant) is telling detectives he’s been poisoned, helping them solve his own murder even as he’s dying.
Yes, David Tennant with a Russian accent requires a mighty suspension of disbelief, but if any actor can take such a jarring adjustment and guide us via a convincing, skilful performance to a rapid place of acceptance,...
Truth is stranger than fiction, they say – and Litvinenko shows why this is a gift to crime dramas. So often fictional crime dramas try to be too slick, too perfectly believable, but real life is messier, more mundane, more ridiculous than what most of us can imagine, and all the better for it.
Litvinenko doesn’t muck about, either – after the briefest of glimpses into what normal life looks like for the Litvinenko family in 2006 within five minutes we’re in hospital, and a wan, now-bald Litvinenko (David Tennant) is telling detectives he’s been poisoned, helping them solve his own murder even as he’s dying.
Yes, David Tennant with a Russian accent requires a mighty suspension of disbelief, but if any actor can take such a jarring adjustment and guide us via a convincing, skilful performance to a rapid place of acceptance,...
- 12/15/2022
- by Lauravickersgreen
- Den of Geek
The world was a different place in 2006 when former Fsb agent Alexander Litvinenko hit global headlines. This was years before Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014, the poisoning of Sergei Skripal in 2018, and even longer before its invasion of Ukraine earlier this year. This was a strange time when Vladimir Putin was still hanging out with George W Bush and Tony Blair; still a tolerated member of the international community. But, as screenwriter George Kay’s new drama on the Itvx streaming service shows, that all began to change with a drop of polonium in a teapot.
The Litvinenko story unravelled extremely quickly. Three weeks after falling ill, Litvinenko was dead – and by that point, his face had been splashed on newspapers around the world. Kay’s series takes the same approach: within the first few seconds, Litvinenko is vomiting into a toilet. By the end of the episode, he will be dead.
The Litvinenko story unravelled extremely quickly. Three weeks after falling ill, Litvinenko was dead – and by that point, his face had been splashed on newspapers around the world. Kay’s series takes the same approach: within the first few seconds, Litvinenko is vomiting into a toilet. By the end of the episode, he will be dead.
- 12/15/2022
- by Nick Hilton
- The Independent - TV
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