★★★☆☆

DIRECTOR Mick Jackson’s courtroom drama – adapted by playwright David Hare from the non-fiction book History on Trial: My Day in Court with a Holocaust Denier – focuses on the quite galling true story of American writer and historian Deborah Lipstadt (Rachel Weisz).

In 1996, she had a libel suit brought against her and her publisher Penguin Books by British historian and infamous Holocaust denier David Irving (Timothy Spall). Deborah is then forced from her relatively quiet teaching life in New York to the courts of London, where she is presented with a very different legal system to the one of her homeland; over here, the burden of proof is on the accused rather than the accuser.

With the help of a formidable but regulation-hampered legal team – including barrister Richard Rampton (Tom Wilkinson) and solicitor Anthony Julius (Andrew Scott) – she mounts her case against a man she professionally discredited and personally loathes for denying an atrocity, the occurrence of which she can’t believe would ever be doubted.

Most of the film takes place in and around the court as the trial goes on, both sides adamant and presenting their case like fighters throwing punches in a ring. Their lightbulb moment of defensive approach is to make Irving’s prejudice and thinly veiled twisting of facts the thing on trial.

The talky drama presented by the rather pedestrian direction can feel stagey and televisual, like it belongs more as a multi-part BBC series than up on the big-screen. And it’s one of those films where the outcome – even if you don’t know the true story – is earmarked from the beginning. That and the general feeling that “of course he’s in the wrong” does drain a lot of the tension out of the unfolding drama.

But there are some excellent performances – particularly from Weisz as the inspirationally steadfast Deborah and Spall as the self-righteous Irving – and there’s no doubting its timeliness as a film about kindness and understanding going up against bigotry and hate.