Inside the Foreign Office

Michael Waldman's three films take us inside the Foreign Office, watching the country's smooth diplomats (and not so smooth politicians) as they conduct the business of statecraft at the highest levels. It's particularly notable how fluently the senior civil servants sidestep the question of Brexit; also, how transparently obnoxious Boris Johnson is, even when mugging for the camera. We don't get any shocking revelations, and the film allows us to see most of its participants at their best, but I thought that there was a ring of truth in its portrait of what daily work in the F.O. might actually involve. There could have been more frank speaking - but I guess that was always going to be hard to procure with this subject.