There should probably be three ratings for "Darkest Hour": film, history and "what if" history

Rating: 10/10 (31 December 2017)

As a film goer, I give it a 10. It conveys a sense of the greatest moments in world history with the type of emotion such an event deserves. As an aside, it, by comparison, shows where the other movie on the event "Dunkirk" failed so miserably. "Dunkirk" took one of the most riveting, awe inspiring events in history and made it play out like a few guys stuck in an elevator in a burning building. "The Darkest Hour" carried the film goer into Churchill's drama and helped the movie goer experience it as the turning point in history it was.
Now, as to the actual history, as many films do to capture the emotion referenced above, it seems to have dropped out some very important aspects of the historical event. Not being a true historian of the period, I would note it disserved the sacrifice and valor of the French army that fought and died to buy Churchill the time needed to get his army off the beach. There may have also been historical inaccuracies in how and why Churchill played out the political hand he had to work with - BUT, what I think it captures well is that Churchill was the guy who had two diametrically opposed routes, capitulate and Hitler would have governed Europe for who knows how long, or lead England into a win or die war. He insisted upon and charged full ahead into the latter and, at a minimum, saved the world from a period of Hitler ruling Europe (the level of his race genocides were not known that that time).
Lastly, there is the "what if" historical questions that are mostly left un-inspected. It would be a whole different film, almost a sci-fi one, if they had been dealt with. What I mean is, the pacifist/peace at almost any cost people were not as wrong and/or ignorant as post war sentiment casts them. As someone noted above, the cost of going to war and defeating Hitler was financially staggering and diminished the UK to a second/third tier power after the war. Obviously the cost in lives and human terms was staggering as well. But for Hitler later veering off into genocide, would "what if" history have Britain looking as bad for making a deal with Germany to subsist in some form along side a unified Europe under German domination? In a historical context, how different is that history from today's "history" post Brexit?
In my opinion this film can't be castigated for not going more into the latter two issues. Films that try to tell too many big stories almost always fail. It captured the emotion and sacrifice that led to a defining moment in history very well. And I can not say often enough how it did that very well while "Dunkirk" was an abject abomination on that score. It took a huge, emotionally riveting historical event and somehow made it seem small and tepid.