Brexit: The Uncivil War (2019)

Directed by: Toby Haynes | 90 minutes | biography, drama | Actors: Benedict Cumberbatch, Sarah Belcher, Malcolm Freeman, Lucy Russell, Oliver Birch, Ross Hatt, Liz White, Simon Paisley Day, John Heffernan, Lee Boardman, Paul Ryan, Kate O’Flynn, Tim Steed, Nicholas Day, Tim McMullan, Richard Durden, Henrietta Clemett, Rory Kinnear

The ‘Brexit’, Britain out of the EU, has been on our minds since 2016. In that year, Prime Minister David Cameron came up with the disastrous idea of ​​holding a referendum on ‘stay or leave’. If only he had never done that…

Because we are now almost three years further, but as far as Brexit is concerned, under Cameron’s successor, Theresa May, we are not really a step further. In ‘Brexit, The Uncivil War’ we see how both camps: the ‘Vote Leave’ on the one hand and the ‘I’m In’ (Remain) on the other side face each other with the best campaign until the referendum. to sit. Political strategic analyst Dominic Cummings (starring role of chameleon Benedict Cumberbatch) leads the Leave campaign. He calls Brexit ‘the biggest political shift since the Berlin Wall’ and that is why he is about corpses. His will is law, my way or the highway. You ask me, then you also know what you get, such a type. And so entrenched politicians have to leave the field and he makes way for a new way of campaigning: using data to try to get the NON-voters on your side. Feed them with devious, targeted social media ads and drag them in. Campaigning is no longer the old-fashioned left (labour) against the right (conservatives), but it has become a battle of old ideas against new strategic tactics.

‘Brexit, The Uncivil War’ is a wonderfully humorous, but also grim image of the men who pull the strings behind the scenes, the analysts but also the financiers. We see how important the right slogan and a little cheating can turn things around. But still, after the narrow, unexpected win of the ‘leavers’, you can see the doubt in Dominic. He suffers from a mixed feeling: What now? Did we do this right? Cambridge Analytica helps the far right led by UKIP leader Nigel Farage with data and Aggregate IQ is brought in by Dominic and ‘suddenly’ reveals a potential of as many as three million voters.

Dates boring? None of that. Leave that to Benedict’s capable acting. Not to mention the well-like supporting role of Richard Goulding (as Boris Johnson). Also nice to see that the ‘real’ protagonists in the story also have a supporting role, which gives the whole a documentary-like look. Anyway, it’s all really made up and set in motion, but you just don’t believe it. Certainly not a soft Brexit…