Colin Firth anchors Peacock’s poignant Lockerbie: A Search For Truth
The new British series effectively unravels a heartbreaking true tragedy.
Image: Graeme Hunter/SKY/Carnival
For the entirety of Lockerbie: A Search For Truth, series star Colin Firth has an exacting challenge. Every ounce of emotion his character experiences as a grieving father transcends the screen through his somber eyes and expressions. The script doesn’t alleviate his task with heartfelt, tear-jerking dialogue, instead allowing the actor to revel in a quietly powerful performance. Firth’s work helps ground the provocative British miniseries (premiering on Peacock in the U.S.) that focuses on the real 1988 Lockerbie bombing, its persisting personal and global impact, and an obsessive hunt for justice.
Firth plays Jim Swire, whose oldest daughter is one of the 270 victims of the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over the Scottish town of Lockerbie. He spends the next decades of his life doggedly pursuing the truth behind the attack, confronting governments, leaders, and lawyers. It comes at the cost of distancing himself from his wife, two remaining kids, and his community, and even befriending a terrorist Jim believes is innocent. In five hour-long episodes, Lockerbie conveys a lot of information to tell a compelling, difficult story.
The show is effectively plotted and thought-provoking, although it’s worth noting that the story is primarily told from Jim’s point of view. It’s based on the real-life Swire’s book, which captures a mournful parent’s quest to understand why his beloved daughter, Flora (Rosanna Adams), lost her life. Lockerbie succeeds in revealing his inner battles but doesn’t necessarily feel like a complete retelling of the tragedy—a task that’s perhaps impossible because of the scale of the events.
So rather than tackling an expansive saga through a geopolitical lens that spans the U.K., U.S.A., Iran, Syria, and Libya, Lockerbie zeroes in on the personal. That is, on the Swire clan: Jim, Jane (Catherine McCormack), and their kids Cathy (Jemma Carlton) and William (Harry Redding). The premiere features a pivotal scene of them bidding goodbye to Flora for a Christmas trip to America, not knowing they’ll never see her alive again. The purpose of it is to rip everyone’s hearts apart, sure, but it also displays a rare moment of joy in this series. It’s the kind of happiness Jim struggles to attain and hold onto after learning about the bombing mere hours later.