The closest thing to a conventional hero in Mike Leigh’s remarkable “Peterloo” is an orator named Henry Hunt; he’s played, in truly full cry, by Rory Kinnear. Hunt’s high-decibel pipes, powered by radical passion, made him the equivalent of a rock star in early 19th-century England. He was the perfect choice to inspire a pro-democracy rally held 200 years ago at St. Peter’s Field in Manchester, England. But Mr. Leigh’s film, furiously impassioned in its own right, is also about the struggle for representation, the perils of dissent in the face of tyranny, the limits of oratory, and the flesh-and-blood cost of what came...

Source: Wall Street Journal April 04, 2019 19:07 UTC