Review of Darkest Hour (2017) by Hutchnotes — 08 Jan 2018

Joe Wright as director makes some excellent decisions here; he doesn’t bite off more than he could chew. Although it does seem like a biopic, it isn’t, it focuses on a very specific time frame and does so with Churchill as the main focus. The film’s pacing is absolute perfection - it feels like a thriller. I’m not a historian, but I’m familiar with the fact that England did not surrender, and that Hitler was eventually defeated, and despite this basic knowledge I still found the movie beautifully suspenseful in a taut, fuse-burning kind of way.

Let me comment on perhaps the single aspect that I didn’t like, that some critics are going out of their way to praise - the score. At times I felt myself being taken out of the movie because the score was so overt, really obviously telling me how to feel. It wasn’t constantly overbearing though, sometimes it was wonderful, but it noticeably took over center stage at times. Lily James as Elizabeth Layton, Churchill’s personal secretary is a treat. I adored her performance. She presents a young woman who is completely taken aback by the monstrosity that is Churchill, yet after time warms to him, becomes loyal to him, and appreciates his quirks. The elegant Kristin Scott Thomas as Churchill’s patient wife had less screen time than I’d hoped, but made her scenes count, contributing to the tone, and the overall character of Churchill. Ben Mendelsohn plays King George VI with grace and draws the audience to sympathize with him as an honest man who is uncertain about where and in whom to place his faith.

Gary Oldman as Churchill might be the most convincing performance I’ve seen since Daniel Day-Lewis’ portrayal of Abraham Lincoln in “Lincoln” (2012). There are many aspects to his Churchill that are downright genius. First and foremost is the makeup. Kazuhiro Tsuji has perfected his craft and his masterpiece is Oldman as Churchill. I honestly could not tell where Churchill ended and Oldman began. Not once, and I was looking. It is astounding. Beyond appearance, Oldman inhabits Churchill as a slightly edgy, maybe crude, eccentric, and very intelligent man with numerous quirks and flaws. I’m no expert on Churchill, but I’ve seen various portrayals and there is something in Oldman’s eyes that sets his interpretation apart, that captures the wildness Churchill seemed to possess - a man on the edge of something brilliant or something disastrous, and either way wreckless to some degree. The most interesting relationship is between King George VI and Churchill. Articulate and eloquent people seem to hold a power over others, and Churchill was one of those people, so he must’ve been intimidating, even to a king, especially one who stammers. The tension between the two is palpable on screen and the power dynamic offsetting each other is captivating.

Churchill is written with great attention to detail and nuance. None of his famous speeches are overblown or Hollywoodized such as Bill Pullman’s “We will not go quietly into the night!” speech from “Independence Day” (1996), which I love and gets me in the feels every time, but I recognize is Hollywoodized in every sense of the word (come on, aliens are taking over the world and the U.S. president is on the front lines of a last ditch effort hyping up the pilots who will most likely face certain death….can you imagine our current president doing something like that? Yeah, me neither). No, Churchill isn’t one who’d confidently grab the mic, puff out his chest, and deliver. He is one who would methodically go over every word and punctuation mark, every pause and change of pitch in his voice. Oldman brings that contemplative, intellectual Churchill to the screen with crisp tenderness. We see Churchill as of course, the boisterous, sarcastic, quick-witted silver tongue he’s become notoriously known for, but we also see him as a man crumbling under the weight of an impossible task, under the weight of a nation losing the largest war in the history of the world.

I walked away relieved that Churchill had done what he’d done, and that the nation of England had exhibited a fighting spirit during the most difficult time in its history, but I also walked away questioning every move he’d made much like I would after a truly inspiring lecture in a college classroom. I was informed enough to involuntarily place myself in Churchill’s shoes and identify with the weight his decisions carried. Should we stand and fight or should we try to reason with the enemy and seek peace.