Welcome to History Lesson, where we take a closer look at the movies that dare to tackle real-life events with varying levels of accuracy, drama, and WTF casting choices. These films promise to educate and entertain, but more often than not, they rewrite history with the subtlety of a sledgehammer. We’ll be your guide through the land of miscast biopics, dramatic embellishments, and historical “inspired-by” liberties, breaking down whether these flicks are Golden Reel Award-worthy masterpieces or just a big-budget Wikipedia summary. Either way, it’s more fun than your high school history class - and there’s popcorn.
This time around we will take a look at the lone film in Season 2's fact-based slate....
HISTORY LESSON: Solution
Leave it to Ralph Fiennes and Lon Charles to turn the most infamous meeting in history into a two-hour anxiety attack. Solution transports us to the 1942 Wannsee Conference, where Nazi officials debated how to commit genocide with all the charm of corporate executives discussing budget cuts. Benedict Cumberbatch’s Reinhard Heydrich is a masterclass in cold-blooded authority, while Daniel Craig’s Adolf Eichmann delivers logistical nightmares with the enthusiasm of a sinister event planner. Meanwhile, Michael Sheen’s Wilhelm Stuckart provides the awkward moral hypocrisy, arguing for a “legal framework” as though genocide just needed a couple of neatly typed memos. If you’ve ever wanted a horror movie where the monsters wear crisp suits and argue over tea, this is it.
For all its stiff-upper-lip delivery, Solution manages to stay remarkably close to the historical record. The surviving Wannsee Conference minutes are followed with unnerving fidelity, particularly in showing how the SS strong-armed their agenda into bureaucratic consensus. Of course, the film pads its runtime with imagined philosophical sparring between Heydrich and Kritzinger, which feels more like a writer’s exercise than actual history. Still, the grim reality shines through: the Holocaust was planned not in frenzied chaos but in cold, calculated efficiency. A chilling reminder that true evil often hides behind a polished veneer.
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