Performances are better than the film

Rating: 7/10 (1 May 2018)

Winston Churchill becomes Prime Minister because he is the only candidate who will be accepted by the opposition at a time when the country desperately needs war leadership. The country is facing military disaster and there is great pressure for a negotiated peace with Hitler's fascist regime.
This revisitation of the short period between Churchill's appointment and seizing triumph from near tragedy at Dunkirk is fairly well travelled ground but is, for the most part, well presented here. I wasn't too sure about Churchill consulting a cross section of the general public (including a fairly unrepresentative for 1940, but politically correct for 2018, coloured gentleman) on a single stop on the District Line which lasted about 5 times longer than it should have done), but it was an attractive conceit. The period feel overall was good.
And the cast was excellent. Lily James came across well as a young secretary, and I greatly liked Ben Mendelsohn as George VI. Most convinced visually when they needed to, and it was clear that much care had been taken to make Gary Oldman look like Churchill.
There tend to be two approaches to the visual side of actors playing well-known historical figures. The first is "It's all about the performance" ie. if there is truth in the performance then it doesn't matter about the resemblance. The second is when effort is taken to ensure a high degree of resemblance in a performance which is a close impersonation. Oldman here does both. He looks like Churchill and he captures most of the key speech mannerisms (his voice is, perhaps, not as gruff as Churchill's). He also delivers a convincing- and entertaining - performance.
This film is, perhaps, not as good as it's being made out to be, but it's not at all bad, and has some excellent performances in it.