The epitome of an Oscar showcase

Rating: 6/10 (23 January 2018)

"Darkest Hour" (one of the best titles this year in my opinion) is a new American/British co-production from 2017, mostly in the English language and this one takes us into the life and world of British Prime Minister Winston Churchill during the most crucial days and weeks from his political career. This is not a biopic at all as the focus is really just on a pretty brief period of time. When you hear Gary Oldman is playing Churchill you could already guess that this would be a force to reckon with and so it came indeed. He seems a lock to win the Oscar now, even a safer bet than the other 3 actors McDormand, Rockwell and Janney, who all seem pretty safe themselves. This movie here runs for over 2 hours, pretty long in fact, and it was directed by Golden Globe nominee Joe Wright who adds another film to his body of work that you could call a period piece, even if it lacks the literary references like his Keira Knightley works. The standout here is certainly Oldman as we see him fight against political enemies, but also find out about his more personal character when he interacts with the females played by Lily Collins and Kristin Scott Thomas, for example about his not so pleasant nickname. Still the key in here is all about politics obviously, namely how Churchill manages one by one to gain everybody's trust and convince them that fighting Hitler and not making piece with him is the right approach. This includes the young woman typing his speeches, the king, the former prime minister and of course the British people. The film also lives through the strength of individual scenes like the Tiger's Mouth scene, the final speech, the phone talk with the American President, the subway scene and many others. Oldman nails the part and the make-up sure helps him to an extent that a second Oscar may come for that. Films focusing on Dunkirk, at least to some extent, seem really frequent this year as besides Chris Nolan's work, we also have a movie starring Gemma Arterton that has some references about this historically memorable place.
What else can you say about this one here though? I think it is very well-crafted and lacks any kind of weaknesses altogether, also from the technical perspective. It is a great character study and there are many really interesting moments and references that make you want to check them out after the credits roll in like Gallipoli, Wallis Simpson and a lot more. Of course, you may be familiar with the latter already if you have seen the Best Picture winner "The King's Speech" from a few years earlier as King George VI plays a major role in both films and they are set at the exact same time of course and show us how standing up verbally against the Nazi reign in Germany was essential back then. These two may also be a nice choice for a double feature. This one here is not a contender in the Best Picture category though of course at the Oscars, but that's fine. There are still enough reasons to see this one, not just the historic, and I think you really wanna go for it. There's also lots of tongue-in-cheek humor in here fitting Churchill's funny side ("can only deal with one **** at a time"). It may not be one of my biggest favorite films from 2017, but given the runtime, this film really flew by. Unless you really aren't into history movies, you wanna check this one out. I give it a thumbs-up of course.