'Longford' challenges with questions about forgiveness, redemption

It's hard to pick the right adjective to describe "Longford" without making it sound boring. The new HBO movie is "thought-provoking," but that might lead you to expect a bit of dry lesson-learning, with stick-figure characters.

Instead it's an impassioned, chilling, and brilliantly acted meditation on a theme, the theme being forgiveness. Watch this superb movie, premiering tonight at 8, and you will indeed be provoked into thought, but only because you'll be so thoroughly transfixed.

"Longford" is a British cousin to "Dead Man Walking," another strong movie about redemption and a murderer that's based on a true story. But while director Tim Robbins made "Dead Man Walking" into an argument against the death penalty, "Longford" writer Peter Morgan (of "The Queen" and "The Last King of Scotland") and director Tom Hooper let their story be. "Longford" has the feel of objective portraiture, richly detailed and psychologically astute but without broad authorial spin or agenda.

The real Lord Frank Packenham, 7th Earl of Longford, was an aristocrat and politician who liked to campaign for prisoners and their rights. In the 1960s, he created a stir by taking up the cause of notorious child murderer Myra Hindley. With her boyfriend Ian Brady, Hindley had kidnapped, exploited, and then strangled and bludgeoned children to death. The crimes were known as the "Moors Murders," after the locale in the north of England where the bodies were found. Longford felt that Hindley, who'd become a religious Catholic in jail, had been a victim of Brady and that she deserved a chance for parole. The public was outraged, and even Longford's wife was disgusted with him; but Longford could not be swayed.

Morgan's script is remarkable in the ways that it portrays Longford's motivations. His lord is a little vain, a tad naive, but above all humane. He likes the press attention, but he also firmly believes that, as he says, "No human being is beyond forgiveness." He is a contrarian who likes to go against the grain, but he is also a man of faith and idealism who truly wants to help those in need. He does not take his title for granted, no matter how incongruous he appears when he takes on social ills such as pornography. He is a gentleman activist. And the questions he asks himself and the public -- Can we ever forgive a murderer? Do murderers deserve their legal rights? Can people really change their souls? -- are well worth asking.

Jim Broadbent's performance is extraordinary. With the help of facial prosthetics, he creates a man who is almost Dickensian in his mannerisms, tics, and speech patterns. But he is fully dimensional, too, and as noble as he is awkward. Broadbent, who won an Oscar in 2001 for his supporting role in "Iris," makes Longford's commitment to helping Hindley a wonderful thing, even if it may be a fool's errand; and he remains sympathetic even while he resists his wife's insistence that he quit the case.

As Lady Elizabeth, Lindsay Duncan has yet another memorable turn (she's Servilia on "Rome"), almost stealing the movie from Broadbent in the second half, when she has her own change of heart. The strong cast also features Samantha Morton, who makes Hindley into a beady-eyed woman-child who knows how to tell people what they want to hear. Her friendship with Longford is suspicious, as are her claims of religious faith; and yet you can understand why Longford trusts her.

But the eeriest performance in the movie belongs to Andy Serkis, the actor who was the model for Gollum in the "Lord of the Rings" trilogy. As the imprisoned Brady, Serkis has only a few scenes, but he makes his lines burn, and they haunt the entire film. He tries to talk Longford out of helping Hindley, warning, "She will destroy you." With his dead eyes and vicious language, he comes off like a living devil, and one who is impossible to have sympathy for.