Churchill

Dir: Jonathan Teplitzky 1hr 38mins (PG) Never in the course of moviemaking…

Winston Churchill had his flaws, but one thing he wasn’t was a “quivering, crying, wobbly-lipped, moany snowflake”, said Camilla Long in The Sunday Times. That, however, is the portrait presented by this “shiny new Brit flick”, which contends that, far from being the sabre-rattling bulldog of legend, Churchill vehemently opposed the Normandy landings, fearing a bloodbath like the 1915 Gallipoli disaster. Brian Cox gives a fascinating performance in the lead, every anxiety readable in the contours of his jowly face, said Geoffrey Macnab in The Independent. But sadly, the talented supporting cast, including Miranda Richardson as his solicitous wife, Clemmie, gets “limited screen time”. Films don’t have to be entirely accurate, said Andrew Roberts on Heat Street, but this, scripted by historian Alex von Tunzelmann, is a travesty. By D-day, Churchill was “completely committed” to the whole idea. His marriage was famously happy, not brittle and contentious as presented here. “Never in the course of moviemaking have so many specious errors been made in so long a film by so few writers.”