DARKEST HOUR
(M, 125 mins) Directed by Joe Wright
Reviewed by Graeme Tuckett
Darkest Hour is set across early May and June 1940. The British Government are in complete disarray. The German invasion of their European neighbours has been shockingly swift and remorseless.
Within only a few weeks most of Western Europe was either taken or toppling. The French army had been routed and what was left of the British army was clinging miserably to the northern French coastline at Calais and Dunkerque (Dunkirk).
At home, the opposition Labour Party demanded that Conservative Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain resign before they would enter the “grand coalition” the British needed if they were to have stable government for however long the war lasted.
Winston Churchill stepped into the role with invasion and annihilation a very real possibility, and many of his own party still bitterly opposed to his appointment.
It’s heady stuff, and it should be the recipe for a fantastic film.
Joe Wright’s Darkest Hour doesn’t always work, but in its best moments it’s pretty wonderful.
In the lead, there is probably no praise high enough for Gary Oldman. It’s routine, if the conversation down your local ever turns to who might be the greatest actor of all time, to offer up DeNiro or Brando or Pacino. With Daniel Day Lewis a realistic prospect to overtake the pack if he can stay the course and Michael Fassbender handed a bolter’s chance if he lasts another few seasons.
But after Darkest Hour, I’d back Oldman against all comers. Maybe I’m biased, in that Oldman’s career has unfolded during exactly the time I’ve been watching real movies. But from his Sid Vicious in Alex Cox’s punishingly good Sid and Nancy (1986) to this
near-definitive Churchill, I can’t think of another worker who who has been so consistently brilliant across such a range of roles.
Oldman’s Churchill is restless, mercurial, quite probably bi-polar, indefatigably alcoholic, pugnacious, blustering and often terrified by his own responsibilities in the face of the destruction and subjugation of the country he loves above all else.
Somehow Oldman makes it all credible, his disconcertingly familiar features peeking out from behind a kilo of prosthetic putty like a badger coming out of hibernation from beneath the snow.
Around Oldman, Wright (Atonement) has assembled an impressive Rolodex of talent, with Kristin Scott-Thomas delivering an especially strong performance as Clementine Churchill and Ben Mendelsohn completely and mischievously immersing himself in King George VI.
It’s not perfect. The vital role the Labour opposition leader Clement Attlee played in backing Churchill against the appeasers in Churchill’s own Conservative party is underwritten and all too easy to miss.
A late scene – wholly invented – of Churchill climbing onboard a London underground train to chat with the passengers about whether he should start peace talks is ludicrous, contrived and unnecessary.
However, those quibbles aside, Darkest Hour isa mostly entertaining, enthralling and at times very moving film.