Chernobyl

Depicting the terrible disaster in 1986 at the nuclear power plant at Chernobyl in what was then the Ukranian Soviet Socialist Republic, and based largely on personal memories of the people in the nearby city of Pripyat, ‘Chernobyl’ is a sensitively played human interest story that reflects the courage and determination of the emergency services, the intransigence and obstructiveness of the  politicians, and the deadly impact this calamity had on the lives of ordinary people.

Reactor engineers conclude that the problem is simply a fire on the roof, whereas the reactor core has thrown much of the highly irradiated graphite upward, onto the roof. Swift action by the firefighters, unaware of the true scale of the disaster, makes little difference, and the touching story of the young fire crew member, Vasily Ignatenko (Adam Nagaitis) is told with great sensitivity. Jessie Buckley’s strong performance as Vasily’s pregnant wife Lyudmilla is a stand-out, and her hope-filled story is picked up later on, in the end credits.

Jared Harris puts in a subtle performance as the shuffling, fearful Valery Legasov, deputy director of the Kurchatov Institute, brought in to oversee the clean-up operation. Detailed to accompany Council of Ministers Deputy Chairman Boris Shcherbina, an unbending party man played with considerable sang-froid by Stellan Skarsgard, to the disaster site, Legasov patiently explains how a nuclear reactor works to this desk pilot.

Legasov finds a spiky ally in the form of nuclear physicist Ulana Khomyuk (Emily Watson) a composite character to typify the many scientists who worked in life-threatening proximity to the disaster, to help deal with the situation. She goads Legasov into brave action, later in the story.

As the nuclear apocalypse unfolds, we see the sense-numbing inertia of the Russian communist bureaucracy, whilst emergency services fight like Trojans to try and contain the disastrous fallout. The story is not without a little grim humour, as a gang of miners from a nearby coal pit are ‘volunteered’ to dig a tunnel beneath the core, to create a burial chamber for the highly radioactive material. Faced with the Communist Party suit-on-legs Minister for Coal, the miners, led by Andrei Glukhov (Alex Ferns), pretend they’re not going to co-operate for as long as it takes for the minister to say ‘please’. Their key part in minimising the effects in this unfolding disaster is rightly commemorated in the scene where, unable to continue to work in their protective suits in the hellish tunnel, they work naked, like their mining ancestors did.

‘Chernobyl’ would not be complete without the courtroom drama, which in true bureaucratic fashion, seeks to apportion blame to those nearest to the action and to shield those who designed,  and rouble-pinched, in the construction of the power plant. Garnering a staggering 19 nominations at the 71st Primetime Emmy Awards, ‘Chernobyl’ is a fine, powerful drama, a testament to the resilience of people up against seemingly insurmountable odds, and contains the ever-hopeful message that truth will not stay hidden forever.