Review: BBC’s miniseries War and Peace is a must-watch, even if you haven’t read the book

The new miniseries is adapted for the screen by the superstar screenplay writer, Andrew Davies

Leo Tolstoy’s epic masterpiece War and Peace is notoriously hard to adapt. While directing the seven-hour Russian adaptation of the novel in the 1960s, Sergei Bondarchuk proceeded to have two heart attacks during the course of production (he was even pronounced dead for four minutes). And for good reason as not only is War and Peace sweeping in its historical scope and sheer scale, it also ponders some of life’s biggest questions: How do we find meaning and happiness in life? What does one individual life amount to in the face of the ruthless enormity of history? How can one grapple with the senselessness and chaos of war? And yet, despite the challenges involved in bringing the philosophical musings and dramatic storylines of the classic novel to the screen, there have been, to date, 14 adaptations of War and Peace. The latest adaptation of the book is a BBC-produced six-episode miniseries that, despite a few missteps, manages to do a remarkably good job of bringing Tolstoy’s characters to life.



The new miniseries has a lot going for it. For one thing, it is adapted for the screen by Andrew Davies, the superstar screenplay writer responsible for critically acclaimed TV adaptations of, among others, Charles Dickens’ Bleak House and Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice (also known as the adaptation that sticks religiously to the book and then also throws in a scene of a dripping wet Colin Firth as Mr Darcy emerging from a lake, to the disapproval of absolutely no one). Secondly, it has been produced by BBC that unquestionably has the market cornered for visually lush and overall high quality period dramas. Completing this unbeatable trifecta is a talented cast that does a remarkable job of breathing life into Tolstoy’s characters. War and Peace follows the lives of two Russian aristocratic families (as well as their friends) around the time of the French invasion of Russia under Napoleon at the beginning of the 19th Century. There’s Pierre Buzukhov (Paul Dano), the kind but bumbling illegitimate son of a count who unexpectedly comes into a large inheritance. He is closely connected to the Rostov family, especially their vivacious daughter Natasha (Lily James), and to the Bolkonsky family because of his friendship with their son Andrei (James Norton), who is dissatisfied by the trappings of his aristocratic lifestyle. As Napoleon draws closer and many of the young aristocratic men enlist in the army to fight him off, the lives of Pierre, Natasha, Andrei and the people around them are thrown into tumult, laying the stage for new relationships to form and allowing characters to move forward in their own personal journeys.

Distilling an intricately plotted 1,500-page novel into six hours of television is no easy task, but Davies rises to the challenge with aplomb. He has been criticised for playing up the more scandalous aspects of the novel (there is subtext of incest in one of the plots in the novel which the show confidently brings to the fore) and downplaying the philosophical questions Tolstoy explores, but on the whole, he manages to juggle all the disparate character arcs with the right amount of philosophical musing. The character journeys of Pierre, Natasha and Andrei necessarily take centre stage, but the other players in the novel also get sufficient screen time to get a sense of their interiority. Andrei’s sister Marya (Jessie Buckley) in particular is a good example of a dynamic and well-defined supporting character, struggling with her difficult father and her own longings.



The acting is first-rate, especially Dano who infuses Pierre’s awkwardness and ineffectual good intentions with a tenderness that makes his inner journey to find meaning in an increasingly senseless world all the more compelling. Norton manages to elevate his character beyond his chiselled cheekbones and angsty rich boy suffering by lending him an air of world-weariness that only grows as he experiences the trauma of war. His general unease with the world allows his happiness in falling in love with Natasha to blossom in sharper relief. James as Natasha is delightful, and her growth from an innocent young girl to a woman who has to live with the weight of her choices is a pleasure to watch.

With sharp writing and effortless direction, War and Peace manages to capture a lot of what Tolstoy was trying to achieve with the novel – the war scenes in particular are remarkably rendered, capturing the senseless violence of war and the struggle individuals have to go through to use their experiences of war to think about creating meaning and happiness in life.

Rating: 4.5 out of 5

Nudrat Kamal is freelance writer. She tweets @Nudratkamal