Few writers have had the influence that Herbert George Wells can claim to have. The man who brought us visions of Martian invasion and time travel also foresaw things ranging from weapons of war like the tank and atom bombs and even a conception of the internet. The man behind such prophetic ideas was, perhaps unsurprisingly, one filled with complexities in his personal life and politics. Trying to make sense of that is the 2006 BBC effort with thespian Michael Sheen playing the author.
Drawing upon H.G. Wells' An Experiment in Autobiography and framed by his 1934 visit to the Soviet Union to interview its leader Joseph Stalin, War with the World follows Wells across roughly three decades. We first meet him in the early 1900s, off the back of his success with the works we most associate him with today, involved with the Fabians and preaching the benefits of free love. From there, we see him as a man driven by ambition and an active sex drive, one that sees him married to an emotionally but not sexually fulfilling Jane as he finds something of a match in the writer Rebecca West. Soon enough, through the First World War and his relationship with West, Wells' views begin to shift until he finds himself a man with a mission: the formation of a single World Government. Yet, as the film shows, neither that or Wells' vision of free love proved capable of being entirely realized in reality.
Anchoring this portrait of Wells is Michael Sheen as the man himself. As his performances ranging from the Blair trilogy to David Frost in Frost/Nixon and Brian Clough in The Damned United will attest, Sheen is an actor who can chameleonize his way into portraying real-life figures. His performance as Wells here is no exception to that, capturing the journey from youthful idealist an older man, at war as much with himself as he is with those around him. Sheen brings those conflicts, as well as moments of triumph and defeat, to life with what seems to be apparent ease. Yet, there's something to his performance, especially in the latter set portions of the narrative, that suggests that we as viewers, let alone Wells himself, can ever know what's going on inside that remarkable mind. The result is arguably the single most powerful part of the entire work.
The film elsewhere is a solid piece of work. Sally Hawkins superbly brings to life Rebecca West, a woman who was very much a match for Wells in her way, and just as deserving for this sort of portrait. Helping to explore the complexity of Wells' relationships and friendships are Sarah Winman as his wife Jane (who was, in fact, his second wife) and Dermot Crowley as the celebrated Irish writer George Bernard Shaw. There's solid if less central performances from Branka Katic as later lover Moura Budberg and Michael Cochrane as one of those in authority Wells is at first encouraged by and later butts heads with over his views. Combined with equally strong production values recreating a variety of period locations from across the British isles and the Soviet Union, and some inspired flashes of stock footage which show what Wells' vision would become, and you have a fascinating look at a fascinating figure.
Despite all that, there's something off about it as a film. Perhaps it's the limited budget of the piece, or even the ninety-minute running time, not giving writer/director James Kent as much scope as is called for by Wells' life. Or, perhaps, it's that the narrative it tells start after he had found his great success with his most famous works that leaves this feeling incomplete as a portrait. It might even be that, as Sheen's performance seems to suggest, there's a certain unknowable quality to Wells as a human being. Whatever the case might be, there is something to the film that leaves it feeling as though there's something unsaid or unshown, which leaves it an ultimately not entirely fulfilling experience.
Even so, it's intriguing as a piece of biographical docudrama. Sheen's performance as Wells alone makes it so, being an overlooked piece of his acting portfolio. And, though feeling not entirely complete, it's also a compelling portrait of a fascinating writer, a man who was ultimately full of and perhaps even consumed by his contradictions. For as much as he could seem to tell the shape of things to come, he perhaps never could get a handle on the shape of his own life.
