i had to let this one sit with me overnight and i'm still not sure how i feel about the figure of lord longford and how he is depicted in this film. before watching longford i had never heard of the titular protagonist nor of the moors murders (and i'm quite surprised about the latter considering their particularly grizzly nature). longford chooses not to focus on the murders themselves but rather on lord longford, a conservative and staunchly catholic politician who tirelessly campaigned for the parole of myra hindley, one half of the murderous duo of her and ian brady, who between them murdered 5 teenagers in the 1960s. if you don't do any extra reading into longford's background and take him at face value as he is portrayed in the film, you might come away with the overall impression of an altruistic (if a bit old-fashioned) public servant who dedicated decades of his life working on behalf of, and refusing to see the evil in those who society would prefer to forget. have a quick read of his wiki page, however, and discover that his devout spiritualism didn't fail to bear the hallmarks of some of the more unsavoury aspects of catholic dogma. yup, longford was a massive homophobe and identified himself as a vociferous opponent of gay rights. though initially taking a lead in the decriminalisation of homosexuality in england and wales earlier in his career, he later stated that homosexuality was "nauseating" and that, regardless of any change in the law, it was "utterly wrongful". later again, he opposed the labour government's plans to equalise the age of consent for gay men (at the time 18) with that of heterosexual men (16), and in a 1998 house of lords debate he remarked that: "...if someone seduced my daughter, it would be damaging and horrifying but not fatal. she would recover, marry and have lots of children... on the other hand, if some elderly, or not so elderly, schoolmaster seduced one of my sons and taught him to be a homosexual, he would ruin him for life. that is the fundamental distinction." yeah... there's a lot to unpack there. not just about how he views the lgbt community but also about how he views women. although the film conveniently ignores longford's history against homosexuality, it does make some small allusions to his strangely gender essentialist view on women and how it colours his approach to dealing with hindley. when longford begins his visitations and subsequent campaigning on hindley's behalf, she's the most hated woman in britain. and rightly so! she helped to lure, torture and murder several children in cold blood. however, longford makes it clear very early on that a large part of the reason he decides to help her is because he believes that as a woman, she isn't really capable of such atrocious acts. in his eyes, any evil wrongdoing carried out by a woman is only at the behest of men, and therefore myra is absolved of most of her sin which, like... what? some might brush it off as "no, he treated every criminal the same and only chose to see the good in people!" but he really didn't. when he went to see brady you could see him visibly wriggling in his skin in discomfort when faced with such an outwardly psychopathic personality. yet when confronted with the soft-spoken and simpering hindley, longford melts like a puppy despite being fully aware of her part in the murders. a typically toxic catholic approach to a moral quandary. cover up the sins or paint them over with a pretty face never to be spoken about again and all is forgiven. even if i do feel a little dubious about the all too favourable light shed on longford as a public figure, at the end of the day, i enjoyed this film. all of the leading actors delivered stellar performances, making for very compelling viewing. probably my favourite life-action role from andy serkis to date - makes you wish he stepped away from mo-cap a little more often.