Colin Firth anchors Peacock’s poignant Lockerbie: A Search For Truth

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.

After that night, Jim makes it his mission to figure out the political stakes that led to the murder of Flora, her fellow passengers, the flight crew members, and the 11 people on the ground in Lockerbie where the plane crashed. He becomes the active spokesperson for the group of bereaved families by engaging in media interviews, meeting with politicians to demand answers, and making some surprising decisions. 

Over the years, Jim finds himself traveling to the Middle East, attending criminal proceedings in the Netherlands, and by 2002, sitting face-to-face with Abdelbaset al-Megrahi (Ardalan Esmaili), the Libyan man imprisoned for the terrorist attack. This is where Lockerbie gets both interesting and most likely polarizing, as Jim and Megrahi form an unlikely kinship. So why is the British father supporting the man who allegedly planted a device that caused the bombing? 

Lockerbie frames Jim as a man who, while determined to seek justice, doesn’t want to risk people being imprisoned for crimes they didn’t commit. Jim’s actions to free Megrahi are shocking and offensive to the other families of the dead, but his intentions are deemed noble. A huge reason to buy into everything the show’s version of Jim does is also the sincerity with which Firth brings him to life. It’s an unguarded performance despite Jim putting up walls, afraid to let himself fall into despair. Esmaili, too, gives a wrenching performance in a TV show that doesn’t want to fully put Megrahi (or his culture and country) into a box. Meanwhile, despite her lesser screentime, McCormack leaves an impact. She gets an unforgettable scene while talking to a Parliament member, going through a 15-second countdown of the pain she thinks Flora must have felt during her freefall. 

As it progresses, Lockerbie often jumps jarringly through time and locations. It’s one of the drawbacks of an otherwise gripping series. The writing also cannot (or doesn’t want to) fully grasp the international political chess games played after the bombing. Which nation or group was behind the plane crash? Jim spends his life seeking an answer, with Lockerbie turning his mission into an immersive and poignant viewing experience. 

Lockerbie: A Search For Truth premieres January 2 on Peacock