Darkest hour is a Beautiful Movie About Courage Under Insurmountable Odds

Rating: 9/10 (27 December 2017)

Darkest Hour takes place over a relatively contained amount of time. It covers the month of May in the year 1940. Normally you would want a little more to pass as it would add to the overall scope but I preferred this approach because of how good a job they do of underscoring the danger of this situation. Without stating the obvious, there's a reason this movie is called "Darkest Hour." This was a perilous time and between Dunkirk and the Nazi invasion of Western Europe, things really could have spiraled out of control. The tension in the movie is thick and ever present, you never forget for an instant how scary this would have been. This helps the movie because without a lot of action, you needed something to help get you from A to B and my attention never wavered when it came to Darkest Hour.
We've had more than a couple biopics now and for better or worse, many of them follow the same beats. One of the more irritating aspects of that is that many movies take flawed main characters and gloss over or ignore the seedier side of their personalities. This was one of the more refreshing aspects of Darkest Hour. Not only is Churchill a complicated man with many flaws, they do a good job of showing that there was reason to doubt him. His record was mixed and he had done a decent amount of flip-flopping to get to his spot. The future looked very bleak and as Viscount Halifax repeatedly points out, peace talks did look like a viable option. Looking back now, Churchill was proven right but I have to credit the movie for showing the other side of the argument. We also see some of the less pleasant side of Winston. He was arrogant, hard-headed and tough to deal with. He also drank way too much for a politician during office hours. But this helps you understand him better as a character and I appreciated that those things were included.
If something caught me off guard about Darkest Hour, I was shocked at how beautifully it was shot. The cinematography was eye-catching, they added a lot of interesting shots and style for a movie that might have seemed like a procedural. Maybe I shouldn't have doubted Joe Wright who has done work all over the Hollywood spectrum and his team, but I didn't expect something to be visually interesting in this. They used the overhead shot of a turbulent area a lot but that was the only thing that made me pause for a second. I also have to tip my cap to the people who did the makeup on Gary Oldman. It didn't look flawless, but it was consistent and I wasn't taken out of the movie because it looked cheap or fake.
I've touched on a few aspects about Darkest Hour but the centre of the movie's advertising is Gary Oldman's performance as Winston Churchill. This is appropriate, he's as good as advertised and I would hope he wins best actor at the Oscars. This is a good character, but Oldman brings it to another level. He's funny, rude, scary and powerful all rolled into one. Lily James gets the next biggest chunk of screen time as Elizabeth. I think she nails it, her character is very vulnerable but through the time she spends with Churchill, her inner strength and conviction comes out and James does her part splendidly. I hope that Kristin Scott Thomas doesn't get lost in the shuffle as Winston's wife Clemmie. She's very charming and I enjoyed her performance every moment she was on screen. It was interesting to see how different the historical figure of King George VI was played by Ben Mendelsohn as opposed to Colin Firth in the King's Speech. This portrayal was a lot less romantic and more calculating and I actually liked that. Mendelsohn excels at playing this kind of character and he holds his own in every scene he has. I also liked Stephen Dillane as Lord Halifax. He's far from a mustache-twirling antagonist and Dillane does a good job of putting the other side of the argument out there.
This movie is so good that I only have one complaint. The ending includes a very emotional scene that is very effective but has limited to no basis in historical fact. That's fine as it underscores some pretty powerful stuff, but it borders on being too sappy. I get why it was there, but you could feel the movie pushing the limits between genuine and over-romantic. I also think this is another adult movie that will have limited appeal to younger people. Again, that's fine but with how good I think this is, I just wish it had broader appeal.
This movie is about courage when you're at your lowest. I got swept up in that, I had been through a difficult time lately and this spoke to me in that way. I saw 3 movies on boxing day and this was the best of the bunch. I wasn't expecting such a well-rounded and affecting drama out of this, but it lived up to the billing. If WW2 history interests you or you just want to enjoy some well done historical drama, this is worth going out of your way to see.