This New TV Drama Starring Colin Firth Is the Most Tense Show of the Year
A suspenseful investigation that will not have a happy ending.
A miniseries is the perfect format for telling stories about horrific events: it allows you to feel the tragedy without getting bogged down in the details.
A few years ago, Chernobyl proved this by immersing thousands of viewers in the 1986 disaster. In the same decade, the curse of Lockerbie began: on December 21, 1988, a Boeing 747 exploded over the Scottish city, killing 270 people.
However, there is a significant difference between the two incidents: while those responsible for the Chernobyl accident have been found, the cause of the plane crash remains a mystery.
What Is Lockerbie: A Search for Truth About?
Doctor Jim and his wife Jane see their daughter Flora, a 23-year-old university student, off on a flight. A strange noise is heard in the sky over Lockerbie – the sound of thunder, the locals thought, before the plane crashed in flames.
The only thing the Swire family has left of their daughter is a lock of dark hair cut off during the identification of her body. Jim is obsessed with getting to the truth, and his struggle becomes the story's central nervous system.
Lockerbie: A Search for Truth Is Full of Conflicts and Secrets
Lockerbie: A Search for Truth is full of conflicts, and the main one is the fight against a system that is not ready to cooperate. Already in the second episode, the doctor begins to lose everything he has left.
Jane gets tired of the constant visits from journalists and intrusive phone calls, while Jim himself chooses to devote his life to the dead rather than to those who remain close to him.
At first, the viewer watches Swire's anger with a certain pride, but soon this feeling is replaced by regret: as other families of the dead turn away from the doctor, the state falsifies evidence, and Jim himself begins to get confused in the evidence, victory seems increasingly illusory and unattainable.
Lockerbie: A Search for Truth Doesn't Give Viewers All the Answers
Lockerbie: A Search for Truth is in many ways reminiscent of the recent Presumed Innocent with Jake Gyllenhaal: both projects begin as detective stories, but then turn into a journey through personal torment, and the letter of the law is no longer so important.
But the closer the show gets to the end, the more it feels like the story is being cut short. But this understatement becomes the series' main message: even truth-seekers who have dedicated their lives to finding the truth remain hostages to political games.