In a sentenceWe spent rather too much of the conversation admiring the furniture
Pierre Bezukhov (Paul Dano), Natasha Rostova (Lily James) and Andrei Bolkonsky (James Norton) belong to a social circle whose private affairs unfold alongside war. In the drawing rooms, conversations bring relationships and competing interests into view. Anna Pavlovna Scherer (Gillian Anderson), Marya Bolkonskaya (Jessie Buckley) and Sonya Rostova (Aisling Loftus) are among the figures in this circle, each with private concerns. The series introduces these people through conversations and family relationships, with battles forming the other part of its story.
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Tom Harper’s War and Peace offers fine acting, grand rooms and clearly staged battles. Andrew Davies’s adaptation is worth trying for the performances, but thin character development and slow conversations keep it from becoming consistently absorbing.
Tom Harper’s War and Peace is an uneven historical drama with enough good acting to justify the patience it asks for. Across six episodes, Andrew Davies gets personal disputes under way efficiently, but leaves too many of the people involved only partly understood. We usually know what a scene is about without knowing enough about the person at its centre to feel strongly about it. That is a substantial problem for a series which asks us to care about so many lives.
Paul Dano, Lily James and James Norton are good reasons to keep going. Their performances make Pierre Bezukhov, Natasha Rostova and Andrei Bolkonsky engaging company even when the writing has not given them much room to develop. The limitations are clearest when an exchange ends just as it seems to be getting beyond the business of moving the story on. The cast makes us want to spend longer with these people, which is both a pleasure and a reminder of what the adaptation has left out.
The sharper social encounters are an exception: competing interests give those scenes a clear purpose, and the people involved stop seeming so carefully introduced. Andrew Davies is good at finding the indignity in a supposedly dignified gathering. We grew impatient when those exchanges gave way to drawing-room conversations that told us little more about the people speaking.
George Steel’s cinematography and Chris Roope’s production design make those surroundings considerable attractions. The lavish rooms establish a persuasive setting for the social encounters, although they sometimes hold our attention longer than the conversation does. Tom Harper directs the battles with a clarity and purpose that the drawing-room scenes too often lack. There is something to follow in the fighting, and a sense that each movement matters. Back indoors, another conversation can feel like an obligation to get through before the series is allowed to move again.
Mark Eckersley and Steven Worsley have the awkward task of keeping this crowded adaptation moving while leaving room for its characters. The editing cannot quite reconcile those needs: some encounters feel curtailed, while others linger without adding much to our understanding. Martin Phipps’s music supplies emotional weight, but there are passages when it seems to be doing work the dialogue should already have done. That encouragement is sometimes more noticeable than anything the characters are saying.
The larger weakness is the thin sense of history beyond the immediate disputes. Historical drama need not stop for a lecture, but it does need to make the pressures on private decisions intelligible. The battles are clear enough, but the wider political circumstances remain indistinct. This leaves the relationships carrying more of the drama, and the hurried character development means they are not always strong enough to sustain it.
We would recommend it chiefly to viewers who already have an appetite for period drama and are prepared to forgive a slow conversation. There are performances here worth giving time to, though the series is not consistently good at rewarding that patience. Try the opening before committing to the whole company. If the drawing rooms already feel airless, their handsome furnishings are unlikely to change your mind.
Dowell describes the finale as a flawless and powerful conclusion. He praises the way it settles the fates of the heroes, heroines and villains.
Read the full review →Jeffries finds the adaptation compellingly silly and engaging, though overly English. He especially praises the deathbed dispute and the disturbing violence of Prince Andrei’s treatment of his wife.
Read the full review →Fienberg finds the miniseries entertaining but too limited to convey the novel’s depth, concluding that the book is bigger and better. He praises the cast and lavish production, while criticizing the thin character development and lack of historical context.
Read the full review →Ryan finds the miniseries handsome but plodding, with little momentum or memorable characterization. She praises its lavish settings and well-choreographed battles, while faulting the drawing-room scenes for their tedium.
Read the full review →
The Age of InnocenceFor social rules that make every polite conversation feel dangerous.
The LeopardThe grand rooms remain, but history presses harder on their occupants.
A Royal AffairCourt politics and private desire share the same rooms, with sharper consequences.
North & SouthAnother period series whose social pressures give its relationships more substance.
The Life of Oharu · not reviewed yetA harsher account of how social rank narrows a woman’s choices.
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