Runtime: 2 hours, 5 minutes
Rating: PG-13
Director: Joe Wright
Quick Impressions:
After the movie, I said to my husband, “I think Joe Wright made the right decision not to cast Keira Knightley as Winston Churchill.”
That went over like a lead balloon, but it seemed so funny to me. I have a very childish sense of humor.
I keep doing this a lot lately, but I’ll go ahead and start by saying that I’m not always the biggest fan of Joe Wright. Months ago, when I first heard that Gary Oldman’s mind-blowing Churchill performance was in a Joe Wright movie, I thought, “Hmmm.”
I wasn’t entirely sure that I would like Darkest Hour. There’s always this mechanical quality to Wright’s films. I mean that he deliberately creates distance between the actors and the audience. His projects tend to highlight the artificiality of what’s occurring on the screen, a technique that sometimes works for me and sometimes doesn’t.
Now I’m sure this has to do partially with the material he chooses to adapt for the screen. (I really kind of liked his moving stage for Anna Karenina, though I also found the technique perhaps too distancing. But I thought it was iffy to make a film version of Atonement at all, and a mistake (though perhaps a mistake by the studio more than the film) to put so much emphasis on Keira Knightley. On the other hand, obviously, Saoirse Ronan couldn’t continue to play Briony through the entire film, and audiences expect a lead actress. I like Keira Knightley, by the way. The problem was the nature of Atonement, not her performance.)
So even though it seems like I do this in every review lately, I’m going to begin by saying that while I don’t always love Joe Wright’s work–because I find it off-puttingly cold and mechanical–I really did like Darkest Hour.
By popular demand, my entire family (except the two-year-old) went to see this, but in two groups (because of the two-year-old). We had all just finally watched Christopher Nolan’s Dunkirk for the first time at home the night before, which definitely put us in the mood for some historical cigar chomping and a little bit of context.
When my parents and my nine-year-old returned from the first screening, my daughter gushed, “Okay, let me just say, it was amazing.” (I’m never sure if she really likes this stuff or she’s just trying to please me, but she was tickled pink to be the one and only child in the theater.)
My mother (who also loved it) reported applause and lots of laughing at jokes from her audience. My husband, fifteen-year-old son, and I got a quieter crowd, but I have honestly never seen an auditorium so jam packed full of people at that theater. I’m surprised no one was sitting on my lap!
So Darkest Hour was a big hit with my whole family and well received by the strangers we watched alongside, too. I’m glad it got a nomination for Best Picture, and if Gary Oldman doesn’t win Best Actor as expected, my heart will break for him.
The Good:
If I had seen this film before Oscar nominations were announced, I would have been weeping on the floor in hysterical protest when Dario Marianelli’s name wasn’t mispronounced as one of the score nominees that morning.
That’s my convoluted way of praising the score in Darkest Hour. It seems to get better and better as the film goes on, which is great because for a while just before the triumphant finale, Churchill goes through a slump of depression and indecision that saps a lot of the energy from the movie. The music just keeps getting more and more intense, though. I loved the way the score was used, the way it started small and built and built so that it was rousing and invigorating just when the film most needed it to be.
My husband loved the score, too. We both like Dario Marianelli’s work in general. One of our very proudest Oscar moments came years ago when after watching Atonement, we both declared with great confidence, “That is going to win Best Score.” We didn’t need to hear any other scores to compare. We just knew. And then months later, our prediction came true, leaving us both feeling very smart. (Honestly I think Atonement‘s score is still the most perfect for a film that I’ve heard in my adult life.)
So, anyway, yes, the score was excellent, extremely understated at first and then bigger and bigger and bigger.
I thought some of the supporting performances were also very good, especially Ben Mendelsohn (whom I always like) as King George (whose behavior truly was commendable during WWII in my opinion). I also liked Ronald Pickup as Neville Chamberlain and the film’s portrayal of Chamberlain in general which I thought a bit more fair than some other depictions of him.
Playing Churchill’s wife Clemmie, Kristin Scott Thomas snagged a Best Supporting Actress BAFTA nod, and in a less crowded year might have pulled off an Oscar nomination, too. She’s very good (though the role is not that meaty). Rather late in the film, she sits down in front of her vanity mirror in a scene that reminded me incredibly of a similar moment with Katharine Hepburn in The Lion in Winter. It’s hard not to think that this is intentional. It made me wonder if Wright was trying to present her as a queen in captivity to her husband’s career and the historical events driving it. Or it may just be the way that Anthony McCarten’s screenplay described the scene. (McCarten’s another one whose work I don’t always like. He definitely seems big on the “behind every great man is a great woman” idea, but I liked Clemmie much better than his version of Jane Hawking. Maybe I’m just in a better mood this year. Who knows?)
Probably my favorite supporting character–and definitely the favorite of my nine-year-old daughter–is the luminous Lily James as Churchill’s secretary/typist, Elizabeth Layton. I’ve read that Layton didn’t actually work for Churchill until the following year, but that didn’t surprise my nine-year-old daughter.
“I think I know why they put her in the movie,” she said. “It was a way for him to see what ordinary people were thinking and feeling, and her picture reminded him that based on his decisions, a lot of real people were dying.”
I think she’s right. Layton is also the character who introduces us (the audience) to Churchill. He’s an extraordinary figure, so it’s helpful to be guided through the story by a person more like us.
One thing that really jumped out to me (and, as I later discovered, to my husband, as well) is the way Darkest Hour presents Churchill as fighting two wars. In Europe, he’s fighting Hitler, and at home he’s fighting his political opponents. As Americans not innately familiar with British politics, we really had never considered things from that perspective.
The movie also makes a strong (and timely) statement about the dangers of isolationism and the necessity of the people’s participation in a representative government.
Most Oscar Worthy Moment, Gary Oldman:
I spent half of high school, all of college, and a good bit of grad school trying to discover the answer to the question, “What does Gary Oldman look like?”
I truly did not know. My friends had no clue, either. Throughout the 90s and 2000s, Oldman gave such memorable performances in a bunch of great movies, but I swear, he looked and sounded like a completely different guy in every single one of them. Until he started doing press about his Oscar nominated role in Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, I really didn’t know for sure which face was actually his.
So I mean, he’s a true chameleon and always has been. He’s a great actor whose presence enhances his every project. But he’s never won an Oscar…yet.
Unless something very crazy happens, he’s about to win his first Academy Award in March. There may well be some legitimate surprises this year, but it’s hard to imagine that Oldman’s loss could be one of them.
If I were Oldman and I lost at this point after so much momentum, I would assume that the Academy did not like me and never intended to let me win an Oscar. I feel pretty confident he will win Best Actor.
But now, what makes this much raved about performance so good?
“I think it’s harder for Gary Oldman than for some people,” my nine-year-old opined wisely, “because he’s playing a real person. And lots of people know Winston Churchill.”
She’s onto something there. (I’m assuming the successful physical transformation of Oldman into Churchill is what lies behind the film’s nominations for make-up and costume design.)
Maybe the trickiest thing is that Oldman is not just trying to play a caricature of Winston Churchill (the kind who might show up in a comedy or a movie about somebody else). He wants to bring us a vivid portrait of all aspects of a multidimensional man. So we don’t get blustery Churchill without mumbling Churchill or insulting Churchill without tender Churchill or decisive Churchill without vacillating Churchill or inspiring Churchill without depressed Churchill. It’s a whole lot of Churchill, and Oldman is convincing in every aspect of the great man. (And gosh, is he actually smoking all those cigars? I’m going to see if I can find out. Oh wow! Apparently he got nicotine poisoning! Talk about dedication!)
To single out one moment is impossible because this is the kind of performance that has a cumulative effect. But I think two very different moments are among Oldman’s finest.
One is the clip I keep seeing on TV, that bit about negotiating with a tiger. How thrilling he is there! But then, the very same man is so visibly shaken when Halifax tries to unnerve him by mentioning Gallipoli. (My mother usually reacts the same way to the mention of Gallipoli, but I think she just really didn’t like the movie starring Mel Gibson.)
Surely Oldman will win the Oscar. This performance is probably tied with Denzel Washington’s turn in Roman J. Israel as best of the year for me, but I would give the Oscar to Oldman. He’s an excellent actor, and this will be his very first Academy Award.
Best Scene Visually:
Bruno Delbonnel did get get a cinematography nomination for this, and I can see why. The first scene that wowed me in this film is that disorienting moment with the planes and the ravaged landscape that ends with the red eye. I won’t describe it in any greater detail than that, but my stepson and I vocally reacted in the moment to that mind-bending scene.
And the scene pairs nicely with a later moment when someone looks up, an eye blinks, a bomb drops.
Best Scene:
I kept understanding this movie as pairs of scenes, like a startling moment followed by an imperfect echo.
Maybe the most powerful moment (until that big finish) comes when Churchill has a frustrating call with FDR as he sits absolutely alone.
This is like the antithesis of the later scene (my daughter’s favorite) when Churchill takes a ride on the tube and finds himself surrounded by his patriotic countrymen.
Best Action Sequence:
We get so many scenes of Churchill walking through subterranean tunnels. I can’t think of any image that screams World War II more than Winston Churchill staunchly marching through an underground tunnel (and eventually even an Underground tunnel).
Again, I see a twin image in the recurrent scenes showing all varied members of Parliament walking together and gossiping in different parts of the building and screen. Joe Wright does that part really well. While I’m at it, I liked his method of showing the changing date. That was a very Joe Wright way to do it, but it worked for me here.
The Negatives:
The legacy of Winston Churchill gets so much backlash that you would think the man were Tonya Harding!
This movie does glamorize and lionize him, the way great-man biopics often do. I mean, it mentions a number of his faults and mistakes as reasons why some are wary of his leadership, but it doesn’t really give them any weight since Halifax is clearly out to destroy him and presented in such a villainous light.
So I mean, if you’re someone who likes to point out that being better than Hitler is faint praise, you might be irritated by this film. Most adults (I hope) realize that the Nazis weren’t (and aren’t, I suppose) the only ones doing unconscionable things. And even Darkest Hour punches the moment in Churchill’s big speech at the end when he announces that even if the island falls, the British Empire in the form of colonies will rise up, and the New World will come to the defense of the Old. So if you view Churchill’s imperialist sentiments as disgusting, well, you’ll probably find this movie very annoying. (I think it’s fair to say that if you didn’t like The King’s Speech, it’s fair to say some of the same things that bugged you about that will bug you about this.)
Darkest Hour is not a true character study because it does not dig too far into Churchill’s less than noble qualities. It does show us some of his weaknesses, his feet of clay, but only in ways that ultimately further endear him to us. The closest we get to a real criticism is the aggressive confrontation about Gallipoli, and his reaction is so emotional that it’s hard to think the film is actually inviting us to consider his failures.
Of course, meditating on Churchill’s failures is not the aim of the film. This is being called a biopic, but the entire story takes place in May of 1940. So we really shouldn’t expect a piece that explores Churchill from every angle and shows us his shortcomings along with his successes.
I usually like this kind of movie, a sort of child’s view of history, and a patriotic rallying cry in favor of England and against the Nazis. I mean, who isn’t against the Nazis? No matter what personal and political failings Churchill may have had, don’t most people agree that it’s better that England didn’t fall to the Nazis? I think it’s okay to crow and celebrate and be self-congratulatory about England’s success in pulling together and surviving the war because it’s kind of a big deal.
Honestly it wasn’t until the “Gas Mask Children” episode of Dr. Who that I realized, as an adult, “Oh my God! During all those bombings, they had no idea they would win the war. Many people probably expected to die defending their soil, to lose to the Nazis.”
That’s very sobering. I think it’s okay to make films to remind people of momentous successes in the nation’s history. They don’t have to be completely historically accurate or appropriately critical of their subjects (and, indeed, this film is neither of those things).
Overall:
Darkest Hour is an inspiring and often funny story of England under Churchill’s leadership mustering courage during its…darkest hour. My family really enjoyed it, particularly Gary Oldman’s career best performance which is definitely deserving of the Best Actor Oscar.