Darkest Hour - Not the Finest Hour

Rating: 7/10 (10 December 2017)

When I was in middle school one of my favorite guilty pleasures was a film called Small Soldiers (1998). In it, the late Phil Hartman sits in his living room, enjoying his new satellite TV while watching a WWII documentary. Tanks thundering, bombs bursting, Hartman looks up from his barcalounger and makes the comment, "You know, I think WWII was my favorite war." For some reason while watching Darkest Hour, I thought a little about that brief cutaway in that one mediocre kids' film. It sounds silly but with that in my mind, I thought more about our constant media exposure to the subject and how even today a lot of the stories we tell (and still the majority of our war stories) are about WWII. Seems not since the second Punic Wars has there been another moment in history where people lineup slack-jawed and stargazing at big men, doing big things. Heroes, villains, world-shaking stakes and potentially world ending weaponry, these are the things we remember.
And arguably the biggest hero we remember of that time was Winston Churchill; the vigorous wartime British Prime Minister who, in the words of a visiting American reporter, "was the right man in the right job at the right time." Yet Darkest Hour has the man intermittently questioning his own resolve. Set between May 10, 1940 and June 4, 1940 the Churchill (Oldman) who stands with heavy prospects and even heavier makeup is one who just saw his worst fears become reality and is now unsure of what to do next. A great man? The film seems to be suggesting not yet.
Now, lest you believe this film is a war drama in the truest sense of the word, know that much of the plot hinges on Churchill's precarious political position and the machinations of his dysfunctional basement war room. Viscount Halifax (Dillane), former Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain (Pickup), the generals and even the King (Mendelsohn) himself all seem to be pulling at different threads to see what unravels out of the pugnacious statesman. They don't know what to make of the cigar smoking, brandy swilling neophyte, which complicates an already dire situation on the European mainland.
Despite the makeup and prosthetics, Gary Oldman turns in a stellar performance as Churchill. While so much of the film wallows in the character's uncertainty, the flame of defiance is ever present in the veteran actor's eyes. You also have to admire the man's dedication to the role. He walks like Churchill, jokes like Churchill, chomps on cigars like Churchill and at times he mumbles incomprehensively like Churchill - which brings me to the biggest problem with Darkest Hour.
The film has a very inconsistent approach to history. Oldman no doubt studied the role as if it were the acting challenge of a lifetime; which is great if one were to compare footage of Oldman and Churchill reading the "We shall fight them on the beaches" speech side by side. But as a function of storytelling the accuracy of Churchill's speech patterns comes at the expense of communicating information. This becomes especially distracting when Oldman is throwing taunts and tirades at Lily James and Kristin Scott Thomas while sounding like a broken muffler. It also doesn't help that depending on the light he either looks like a Bob from Office Space (1999) or a Muppet.
On the other side of things, nearly everything meant to heighten the tension (except, you know, the war) is either fictional or highly suspect. I'm not an expert historian by any means but even I know Churchill's war room couldn't have been that duplicitous and aggressively petty. Much ado is made about the new Prime Minister's defiant stance against Hitler, which I'm sure wasn't as resolute as we all think but certainly not as wishy-washy as this movie make it become. There's also a scene on the London tube that has the double problem of being historically false and incredibly trite.
But even if you're not a student of history and are just looking for a good yarn – even then, Darkest Hour falters. Director Joe Wright's consistent approach towards his films is one of close angular shots, studious symmetry and a flare for the frontloaded metaphor. It works in Atonement (2007) and Hanna (2011) but not here.Here it feels more like they were making a made-for-TV movie in all honesty.
This is a very small film; so small that it's trying to fit into the mind of a single man. Yet that single man is a towering figure in a crucial moment in history we're already incredibly familiar with. Churchill deserves a Patton (1970) not a Hyde Park on Hudson (2012); a movie that greets the greatness of the man on equal footing instead of trying to reel him in like a whale on a rusty fishing trawler. Given Gary Oldman's performance, Darkest Hour could have been something special. Instead it's just the third film released this year centered on the evacuation of Dunkirk. As far as smaller movies go, watch Their Finest (2016) instead.