Too many confusing story lines about individuals

Rating: 3/10 (16 July 2017)

I had the opportunity to preview this movie and was very excited to see it as I am a history buff. **Spoiler**As the movie starts out, we are introduced to a few characters, whose names were either never said, or I could not hear them. (The background sounds--the "subtle" music that was playing while the characters talked, or sounds of walking, just any ambient noise--was so loud that it covered much of the dialogue, and the sound effects of the war were headache-inducingly loud--don't know if that is the movie itself, or the theater--but why wouldn't the dialogue have been louder as well if it was the theater?). So we have these characters, and then all of a sudden the story shifts to some other people, who don't seem to have any connection to the first few characters. And then we shift to more new characters, and then to more. All in all, there are about 10 story lines going on, I guess to tell the story of Dunkirk from more than one perspective. However, the movie seems to just randomly jump from one character story line to another without connecting all of them, or having any kind of overall plot arc (other than the story lines are all about Dunkirk). It reminded me of the multiple story lines from Love Actually, except that in that brilliant movie, all the story lines are connected and make sense together!
I wish the focus had been a little narrower, and stayed on one or two characters and their experience, rather than showing a breadth of experiences, but no depth. There was no character background given on anyone, so I never developed any kind of connection with any of them. As there was no character background, there was also no way to develop the characters. They all seemed very flat. And surprisingly, unlike almost every other WWII movie out there, there was no "historical synopsis" at the end--you know, like "Dunkirk was a success, and is the only time in history that civilians were called on to aid the troops." (I don't know if that's true or not, just saying something they might have said), or some little nugget of history that really finished the story.
Overall, it was filmed well and acted well, but I felt like the dialogue was lacking to really tell the story of the characters, and the dialogue that I did hear was not sufficient to enthrall me or help me to know the people involved. So disappointing that we don't get to know those characters better, I think their stories would have been very interesting, and lent a greater depth to the movie. But the stories, their experiences, just aren't there.