Historical novels and the works that are based on them often explore grand what-if ideas. The basis of Philip Roth's The Plot Against America, for example, considered a version of the United States in which the popular anti-semitic aviator Charles Lindbergh defeated Franklin D. Roosevelt in the 1940 presidential election. Philip K. Dick's The Man in the High Castle imagines a world wherein the axis powers won World War II.

In the new film Munich - The Edge of War, based on a novel by historical fiction specialist Robert Harris, the hypothetical WWII scenario in question isn't an actual event, but a widely held belief. What if, the film asks, Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain wasn’t quite the ass-hat historians have made him out to be?

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Set in the weeks leading up to the signing of the infamous Munich Agreement, the film presents a sympathetic version of Chamberlain, played by the immensely likable Jeremy Irons. Here, he's not the naive appeaser who kowtowed to Hitler and kickstarted the fuhrer’s attempted conquering of Europe. He is a compassionate, war-weary leader wisely signing an agreement that, if nothing else, bought his country the necessary time to prepare for conflict.

What if, the film asks, Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain wasn’t quite the ass-hat historians have made him out to be?

(A quick history lesson for those of you who don’t identify as World War II scholars: The Munich Agreement was a deal brokered by Prime Minister Chamberlain, Benito Mussolini, and the Prime Minister of France, Edouard Daladier. It allowed Hitler to annex the ethnically German region of Czechoslovakia known as Sudetenland in exchange for his commitment to not invade the rest of the country. *Spoiler alert* Hitler did not keep his promise. Within six months, he invaded the rest of Czechoslovakia, then Poland, Denmark, Norway, Belgium, and so forth, and so on. Due to its failure to prevent war, historians came to view the Munich agreement as a diplomatic disaster and Chamberlain as the naive leader whom Hitler easily duped.)

To bring this alternate argument to life, Munich director Christian Schwochow approaches the disgraced prime minister with a wide, empathetic lens. In one particularly indulgent scene, Chamberlain meanders about his damp, gloomy garden and offers an explanation for why he might, hypothetically speaking, be tempted to sign a peace-seeking document with a certain mustached nazi whose name rhymes with Shmitler.

It seems Chamberlain simply cannot stomach the idea of another conflict so soon after the devastating battles of the first world war. He is reluctant, the film argues, to put British citizens through more tragic circumstances. “Now every time I pass a war memorial,” Chamberlain says to his wife as he prunes a flowering camellia bush, “I vow that if I find myself in a position where I could prevent such a catastrophe from happening again, I shall do anything, sacrifice anything, to maintain the peace.”

As luck would have it, Chamberlain finds himself in such a position a few scenes later, when he arrives in Munich to meet face-to-face with Hitler. First, though, he must get past a pesky pair of low-level British and German diplomats, Hugh Legat and his Oxford chum Paul von Hartman (played by George MacKay and Jannis Niewöhner respectively) who despite a recent falling out, now share a mutual goal in dissuading Prime Minister Chamberlain from striking a deal with Hitler.

Before he meets face-to-face with Hitler, he must get past a pesky pair of low-level British and German diplomats, Hugh Legat and his Oxford chum Paul von Hartman.

At the heart of the duo’s efforts is a secret memo that von Hartman has obtained from his lover and fellow covert anti-Hitler government agent, Helen Winter (Sandra Hüller). He claims it reveals the Führer’s true intent: to take over not just the Sudetenland but all of Europe. For this reason, Hartman discourages Prime Minister Chamberlain from seeking peace and promises him that members of a secret rebellion stationed throughout the German government and military will join France and Great Britain in retaliating against Hitler for invading Sudetenland.

The assurances do little to persuade a stubborn and stolid Chamberlain. With a furrowed brow, he dismisses Hartman and signs the agreement, again taking a moment to explain his decision as if he’s defending his legacy against potential, future detractors: “the people of Great Britain will never take up arms over a local border dispute” he says to the devastated German diplomat—even if, evidently, a secret memo all but guarantees Hitler will attempt to conquer additional countries.

Of course, in reality, there was no such secret document. As he did in the film, Chamberlain signed the agreement and, upon returning to Downing Place declared, “peace for our time.” Whether the prime minister actually believed this statement or secretly knew better remains impossible to prove, but Munich - The Edge of War makes a convincing albeit controversial case that, either way, the deal Chamberlain brokered was, as Legat concludes in the film’s closing moments, a smart, purposeful delay; “a chance at winning the damn [war] when it happens.”

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