Brexit is a highly complicated and ongoing national issue for the citizens of the United Kingdom, so you know what that means: it’s time to dive in and make a movie about it! HBO Films has done just that, casting Benedict Cumberbatch (Doctor Strange) as the man who spearheaded the Vote Leave campaign and Rory Kinnear as the head of the Remain campaign. Watch the two of them butt heads in the trailer below.



Brexit Movie Trailer

Here’s the official description:

The result of the Brexit referendum in summer 2016 caused a political earthquake that laid waste to the normally stable British establishment and sent political tremors around the world. This provocative feature-length drama goes behind the scenes, revealing the personalities, strategies and feuds of the Leave and Remain campaigns. The tactics employed by Vote Leave during the data-driven campaign swayed a historically silent voting bloc that would ultimately decide the outcome of the referendum, as well as affecting future elections around the world.

Brexit, the nickname for the UK’s withdrawal from the European Union, remains a hugely convoluted scenario that most people – even British journalists who are paid specifically to cover it – aren’t able to clearly analyze. The Daily, a podcast from The New York Times, recently produced an episode devoted to Brexit that provides some context for how it came to be and the latest developments in Prime Minster Theresa May’s attempts to figure out a way forward.

The Brexit movie is directed by Toby Haynes, who has previously helmed episodes of British TV shows like Doctor Who and Sherlock. He also directed “USS Callister,” which is arguably the best episode yet of Black Mirror. Brexit is written by James Graham, who has several political-themed projects under his belt already, including a Brexit-themed short called “Burn.”

Brexit is a catastrophe that has no end in sight, so I’m not entirely sure why making a movie about it is a good idea at this point. It seems as if Graham is interested in exploring the way the tactics used to influence the vote, which should sound very familiar to anyone in the United States who has paid attention to how social media became a huge factor in the 2016 presidential election. Does this upcoming feature have any chance of shining any new light on this nightmare?

Brexit premieres on HBO on January 19, 2019.