Impeccably well made, cleverly written, some wonderful performances. But.
It’s a story about a nuclear weapon launched from an unknown location and everything that happens in the 18 minutes of its flight. Those 18 minutes are retold three times from the perspectives of different characters. Sometimes we hear those characters as voices in one part and then see them speak those words in another part, in an overlapping structure that is clever but also starts to suck some of the air out of the piece.
Rebecca Ferguson’s signature weird chill of edgy professionalism denotes the first part. Tracy Letts is cast as the Curtis LeMay bomb-‘em general – but Letts is, as ever, so sympathetic and likeable that it lights the role differently. Jared Harris does a nice soft cameo. Idris Elba, as intelligent and creatively curious as any actor working, portrays a president essentially forced to relive George W Bush being told about 9/11 during a visit to a school, while possessed with Obama-like caution and hesitancy. Which makes him either the best or worst person to be put in the position of having to press the big red button.
But. We never find out what happens. And, with all the warm interpersonal and occasionally slightly soapy stuff, this is more THE DAY AFTER than THREADS. It outlines the worst case scenario, and, while it does what it set out to do, I can’t help but feel like it was missing some real hardness and real commitment to the bit. Which is unfair. That ending was a brave creative choice and I admire that, But it does feel like a softer, more conventional work than it could have been.
I will watch it again.
Worth reading NUCLEAR WAR: A SCENARIO in conjunction with this.
A HOUSE OF DYNAMITE is on Netflix.