Directed by: Johan Renck
Starring: Jared Harris, Stellan Skarsgard, Emily Watson, David Dencik,
Mikhail Gorbachev's words from his 2006 memoir about Chernobyl being the event which brought down the Soviet Union are depicted in Chernobyl's sad epilogue, and the same thought was racing through my head during this five-hour plus HBO miniseries. Chernobyl represented the watershed mark in Soviet history in which the superpower had to admit failure and lagging behind the West on its ability to safely harness nuclear power. The explosion at the Chernobyl nuclear plant on April 25, 1986 wasn't a one-off disaster which could be contained and dismissed as a minor accident.
Thousands died, either right away in the blast or years later after radiation had slowly sapped the life from their bodies. The Soviet Central Committee attempted to conceal the truth from the public and the world. Their official number of deaths from Chernobyl remains 31. The truth, that the explosion was a result of incompetence and cost-cutting measures which hampered plant and reactor safety, could not be uttered under any circumstance. This type of accident doesn't happen HERE. It happens in the West. Chernobyl was the man-made catastrophe which couldn't be ignored.
The explosion of Reactor 4 of the plant was the result of a safety test gone horribly wrong. The perfect storm of lack of communication, a jerk superior who intimidated his inexperienced subordinates to go through with the test, and a lack of a fail-safe measure triggered the unprecedented core meltdown and explosion. Firefighters and containment personnel were sent in to contain the fire without sufficient protective gear or knowledge of what happened. The local population wasn't evacuated for fear of word leaking out about the explosion. By the time the Central Committee contacted Dr. Valery Legasov (Harris) to assist, the radiation was already doing its damage far beyond what could be reasonably contained. Legasov isn't brought in to assist, actually, but for appearances' sake. He is a nuclear physicist who understands that what happened at Chernobyl is far worse than his superiors are letting on. The Central Committee is taking a "nothing to see here" approach, but local hospitals treating victims with head-to-toe radiation burns know the danger is much more than is being advertised.
Legasov and Central Committee member Boris Shcerbina (Skarsgard) are tasked to investigate the explosion, but somehow arrive at the Communist Party's position that the disaster was caused by human error no matter what evidence is unearthed. Human error was part of the problem. The power plant was hastily certified in December 1983 before any tests could be conducted to ensure the plant's safety. The plant operators erroneously and arrogantly attempted a test during a critical period in which factories depending on the plant's power needed for month-end productivity spikes. Why the operators simply didn't push the already overdue safety test back a few days is anyone's guess. It's not like anyone was looking for it. But conduct it they did, and they discovered how well the reactor responds when it is missing key elements like boron, water, and backup power to properly issue a test.
Also looking into the explosion is Ulana Khomyuk (Watson), who was not a real person, but instead a composite representing the thousands of scientists brought in at great risk to their own health and safety to discover the truth. The final episode clarifies what happened and why in chilling detail, and Legasov puts his life on the line by daring to stipulate that the Soviet government cut corners to save money when erecting the plants. Another Chernobyl could happen if the issues aren't corrected, not that anyone in the Central Committee wants to hear that in 1987, when the Soviets believed they still had a chance to compete with the West for overall world domination.
The three central performances are all very good. They take stock characters and infuse them with humanity and internal conflict. Legasov is a man of science who is forced to tow the party line.
Shcerbina is a lifelong party member who has a lifetime of experience following the party's directives, but finds he can't stomach it any longer as Chernobyl's destruction spreads. Khomyuk is the movie's conscience, urging Legasov to speak the truth even at a potentially deadly personal cost. She finds this isn't so easy.
If there is a weakness to Chernobyl, it is that it didn't need to be five episodes long to prove a point made quite bleakly and convincingly in the first episode. There is an entire segment dedicated to soldiers who must prowl the countryside shooting animals affected by the radiation. We are even treated to a scene in which dozens of dead dogs are dumped into a mass grave. An unnecessary subplot. The five parts could've been condensed to three without robbing of Chernobyl of its powerful, yet concerning message. The epilogue spells out the long-term effects of the disaster, and while another hasn't happened again, the Soviet Union went down fighting the installation of the changes to ensure another Chernobyl wouldn't be repeated. Chernobyl was quite a price to pay to conceal an entire nation's dirty little secret. And now with Vladimir Putin in power, Russia is practically devolving back to the days of the Cold War. Look how well that turned out for them.
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