Movie Review: Orwell: 2+2=5

While many readers claim familiarity with George Orwell’s most famous works—Animal Farm (1945) and 1984 (1949)—a dispiriting number seem to have missed their central message. Maybe they just don’t have very strong media literacy skills, as seems to be the case with increasingly fewer people, or maybe it’s the understandable discomfort of having one’s worldview so directly challenged. Either way, using excerpts from those two books as well as from his nonfiction writing and personal letters Raoul Peck’s latest documentary should make the intended takeaway crystal clear for anyone who takes the time to watch.

By juxtaposing that material with clips from the movies they’ve inspired over the years and footage of modern events and political figures from around the world, Peck drives home just how much humanity has managed to avoid taking any of Orwell’s lessons to heart. He believed authoritarianism to be an immense and insidious threat to our species and did his best to portray its ill effects through both fiction and nonfiction, in each case inspired by actual atrocities he witnessed occurring around him. Despite the widespread success his books have received and retained across decades, many of his warnings have already come to pass.

It’s a neat and jarring trick to be consistently reminded that the narration was written to warn and criticize halfway back into the prior millennium, as it so often perfectly fits the present day horrors we inflict upon each other as to feel like it was discussing them specifically. With harrowing footage from Gaza, Ukraine, Myanmar, and even Washington, DC as well as ample demonstrations of the ways that real governments are using language akin to that disseminated from 1984‘s Ministry of Truth (“War is Peace”, “Ignorance is Strength”, “Freedom is Slavery”) to manipulate their citizens’ very understanding of reality, the film paints a very dim portrait of civilization in 2025.

Well-narrated by Damian Lewis, whose voice is perfectly suited to represent Orwell’s, with an equally fitting score by Alexeï Aïgui, and flashy editing by Alexandra Strauss, Orwell: 2+2=4 remains engaging for nearly its entire two-hour runtime. “Nearly” because there are a few times when it feels like it’s repeating itself that can start to lag a little that probably could have been trimmed. Still, Peck makes a compelling argument here that should set off major alarm bells for those who aren’t already concerned. No real solutions are offered, though that could be due to no one else coming up with any good ones yet either. Perhaps ensuring this urgent documentary reaches at least a few of those who most need to see it counts for something. ★★★★½