Historically accurate ... also, stirring

Rating: 10/10 (17 January 2018)

What a welcome surpise ... it featured policy & strategy, and it was far more accurate than usual in history movies ("Dunkirk" ... blecch).
Almost all the policy dialogue came straight from biographies of Churchill and debates of the era ... many authentic quotations ... many incidents shown as they were (or at least as pols and diarists and newspapers reported them at the time).
F'rinstance: Clementine's reproof of Churchill's short temper comes from a famous letter she wrote to him (private at the time) ... the meeting of the large Cabinet near the end, which convinced Churchill that he could outweigh Halifax in the War Cabinet and spurred him to give the "we shall fight on the beaches" speech in Parliament ... that's almost exactly as reported at the time by MP Hugh Dalton, who was at the large Cabinet meeting. Most of the important dialogue can be found in biographies and accounts by Martin Gilbert, Roy Jenkins, Andrew Roberts and John Lukacs.
The interaction between Churchill & his secretary was invented but it stayed within reasonable bounds (there has to be some way of showing the emotions of a people about to go to war, during a time when the Cabinet was not out on the street giving speeches) ... the ride on the Underground did not happen, but hey, this is a flick, and the people of Britain felt the way the people on the Underground felt, so it works ... Churchill reciting Maccaulay on the Underground, and a black man finishing the last two lines! ... ludicrous, but okay, considering the good qualities of the rest of the film.... the King did not visit Churchill's house; the King didn't grow to like Churchill until later in the war ... but okay.
And the dying, reprehensible Chamberlain really was won over to Churchill's side and away from Halifax.
So all in all ... boffo.