Reducing history to generic myth

Rating: 5/10 (12 May 2020)

With hindsight, it was absolutely a good thing that Britain was led by the unlikely figure of Winston Churchill during World War Two. The politics around Churchill's ascension to power are very interesting, from the desperate desire of many to avoid war at all costs, to the major role of Churchill's own incompetence during the Norway campaign in the fall of Chamberlain's government. There's lots of good material for a film here, but unfortunately 'Darkest Hour' isn't that movie, preferring to exaggerate both Churchill's heroism and buffoonishness, while painting his political opponents as virtual traitors to the country. Meanwhile, the dramatization of the story reduces it to the banal narrative of a Hollywood biopic, with the premier granted an unlikely epiphany on the London Underground. Gary Oldman buries himself in the character, but it's in the service of myth more then history.