HBO War is intended to be an anthology series about two dueling London law firms. The first season stars Dominic West and Sienna Miller as a high-profile couple in the middle of a very a nasty divorce.
Justin Downing/Sky/HBO
hide caption
Justin Downing/Sky/HBO
Dominic West specializes in playing men who feel victimized by the consequences of their own actions. One of his iconic lines as Jimmy McNulty in The thread was: “What have I done?” The line was often not said in the sense of, “Oh no, what did I do?” TO DO?” But instead, like an indignant: “Why am I being yelled at? What is I do?” And while West faced off against then-Prince Charles in The Crown If you put him in a completely different setting, he would retain this feeling of arrogant bewilderment, offended every time he felt he was seen as the bad guy.
In the new HBO series WarWest plays Morgan Henderson – a tech mogul, not a cop or royal. But he, too, struggles to see his own fingerprints on his problems, including his marriage. Morgan is married to Carla Duval (Sienna Miller), an A-list actress whose fame inevitably begins to waver as she gets older. As the first episode begins, they both seem aware that the marriage is on its last legs, but no one has taken action – at least not openly – yet. Then, at a dinner without Carla where he receives an award, he sees a beautiful woman in the crowd. Things are moving forward. Someone is taking action.
This is the setup of the first battle, so to speak, of Warwhich is intended to be an anthology series about two dueling London law firms. Each season will focus on a different case. The first is Morgan and Carla’s separation, which one of the lawyers says will be “the biggest divorce trial in British legal history.” Morgan works with an old, well-established company called Cathcarts – all dark wood interiors – where he is represented by the terrifying St. John Smallwood (a deliciously wicked Pip Torrens). Carla hired a young firm called Taylor & Byrne – all glass walls and contemporary furniture – run by married couple Serena and Nick (Phoebe Fox and James McArdle).
In this first hour, we also meet Johnny (Archie Renaux), a young lawyer who, for initially unclear reasons, has fled a Manhattan firm to return to London and is struggling to find work while waiting tables and trying to hold on to a frustrated girlfriend. Johnny is a little desperate, and considering the kinds of people he meets over the course of this story, it’s never good to be desperate. He naturally includes both companies in his job search and ends up interviewing both. By the end of the first episode, we know it will affect how things progress on both sides of the case.
War was created by George Kay, who also created the Idris Elba action drama Divert and the agile and intelligent Lupineand he also brings a lot of velocity to the story in this setting. A large part of War is made up of elements that have always animated legal dramas that are heightened and border on scandal: intrigues, dramatic reversals of fortune, witnesses who appear or not, documents lost, found and suddenly revealed. The fact that these lawyers are also people only intermittently matters: On the Taylor & Byrne side, there’s a little attention paid to Serena and Nick’s domestic lives, but on the Cathcarts’ side, there’s little evidence that St. John or any of the other stone-faced partners are thinking of anything other than crushing each opponent into dust and moving on to the next one.
But there’s also the story of Morgan and Carla, who once sincerely loved each other and who soon learn that the last thing their lawyers care about is protecting their remaining friendly relationship – even for the sake of Carla’s son, to whom Morgan has been an involved and loving stepfather. Rather, lawyers see it as their obligation (and, they will sometimes admit, their pleasure) to engage in the total destruction of the other side.
There’s a delicate tonal balance in treating the lawyers’ cruelty as entertaining and even amusing while also allowing its consequences to be clear. Sometimes the effort to be sincere about the sadness of Morgan and Carla’s situation doesn’t quite mesh comfortably with the more malevolent (and delicious) goings-on at both companies, where internal competition and backstabbing can be just as dangerous as anything opposing sides can do to each other. The series has a little too much heart to be the chilling examination of the innards of humanity as we sometimes feel it is going to be.
Always, War offers an impressive cast solidly executing a well-constructed story. You might call it chic-trashy, embracing both the “what are these people going to do next?” » intense drama and moments of true humanity from West and Miller, both of whom are solid in it. In fact, they may both fail at first to understand what exactly they did to end up in such a miserable state, but if their lawyers teach them anything, it might be to think twice about marriage and divorce.
This piece also appeared on NPR’s Pop Culture Happy Hour newsletter. Subscribe to the newsletter so you don’t miss the next one and receive weekly recommendations on what makes us happy.
