User Reviews

War and Peace and Les Miserables are both mammoth novels that have received various film treatments and adaptations. And while Les Miserables is perhaps more popular due to the musical (Prokofiev's opera never made Tolstoy's tome catchy and Broadway-friendly), War and Peace still remains a solid classic epic. As a fan of Tolsoy's novel, I would judge this an adequate adaptation. The costumes are stunning: if you love your filmed Jane Austen and all the lovely costumed dresses, gowns, coats and cravats, you won't be disappointed. The fabric and textures are rendered beautifully. And if you want to see the architectural wonder of St. Petersburg and Moscow, you're in for a treat: from the vast palaces of Czarist Russia to the lavish drawing rooms and bedrooms and other boudoirs, the camera lovingly captures the brooding and bountiful colour of the 19th century atmosphere. For any BBC fans of Andrew Graham-Dixon's Art of Russian, you'll be impressed with the Catherine Palace. That's a whole lot of gold. Also, the scenes for the exteriors are equally wondrous, with dense birch forests and snowy undulating landscapes filling in and offering more of the Russian and Eastern flavour. Regarding the 'war' side, the battle of Austerlitz was a little scattered, but overall, it got the job done. Borodino... good but not great. The CGI budget was probably pretty limited here, and you can tell. Turning to the meat and poatoes, the acting, well, it's quite good, satisfies the appetite yet with the cast being numerous, it would be hard to give a generous report. Let me say Paul Dano as Pierre stands out above the rest. Interesting to think in a British production it would be the gawky American proving to be the axis mundi around which most of this adaptation revolves. Not to say the others are inadequate. Everyone is up to snuff, good, great in their own ways but Dano, wow, he offers the viewer the spiritual core or rather, the gentle heart to this version. Throughout the series, he delivers Pierre's vulnerability, disgust, confusion, and redemption in such a magnificent way. He embodies the character, while the others seem to have shrugged off their typical BBC adaptations characters and slipped into Tolstoy's historical world with a kind of Anglo-Shakespearean poise. Not to say Jim Broadbent doesn't deliver on his cantankerous Count Bolkonsky. He is also memorable, but this is the minor problem or my main quibble with this version of the monumental Russian epic - it felt too...well.. too BBC, too British. I mean, I give credit to Tom Harper for helming this massive project (funny to also think the Les Mis film of 2012 was directed by a Tom HOOPER) and it was great to have alumni writer, Andrew Davies putting pen to page as he has done with other tripledecker novels (Middlemarch, Vanity Fair, The Way We Live Now, Wives and Daughters, and heck, Les Miserables as well....), but like Davies' version of Dr. Zhivago... again... War and Peace feels more British, less Slavic. Or rather British people putting on Russian clothing. All this dress-up needs that extra oomph of believability. And sure the moody score and the lovely and goose-bump inducing moment when Natasha (Lily James) does her Russian dance give that exotic flavour, whenever the actors spoke, and acted, there was that typical British sense of restraint in their poise and performance. Not to suggest that everyone should have donned pseudo Slavic accents. Omar Shariff, for me, is how you convey the great spirit of a Russian character. Overall, while I was impressed, I never felt swept away. For me, this adaptation felt like a translation of Tolstoy where the translator used far too many British expressions and obvious anglo-accenting for its Russian characters. It is definitely worth a watch. Don't get me wrong. To sum it up: beautiful, well-crafted and acted, while being stilted... It was lively without feeling 'alive.'

Very good series. Acting and story by great Lev Tolstoy. Lily James Just amazing, Paul dano very good too