Review: Darkest Hour

A biopic on Winston Churchill (Gary Oldman), newly appointed British PM as WWII and the decision as to whether or not to negotiate with Adolf Hitler plays on his mind.

A massive improvement over the insane and factually bullshit “Churchill”, this 2017 film from director Joe Wright (the terrible “Atonement”, the interesting “Hanna”) still greatly underwhelms. Part of the problem for me is that unlike the rest of the world, I think Gary Oldman is grossly miscast in the title role. I don’t believe an actor always has to look and sound exactly like the real-life figure they play, but when it’s someone whose face and voice are immediately recognisable? Yeah, it’s a prerequisite in my view, and Oldman isn’t up to snuff (especially compared to Brendan Gleeson, who played Churchill quite memorably on TV a few years back). He sounds nothing like the man and looks like himself wearing makeup. Although he gets Churchill’s cadence relatively OK in other parts of the film, he completely whiffs on the ‘Never surrender’ speech, one of history’s most well-known, even if some of us mostly know it from the prologue to Iron Maiden’s brilliant song ‘Aces High’. Instead, Oldman sounds like Jim Broadbent doing Denholm Elliott doing Sir Alfred Hitchcock. Sorry, but no amount of cigar smoke was gonna hoodwink me into buying Oldman as Churchill here. Baffling decision by Oscar to award him the Best Actor gong, but I appear to be in the extreme minority on this. The best I can say for him is that his overall performance, Churchill or not, is much better modulated than some of his self-indulgently over-the-top performances in films like “Leon: The Professional” and “Bram Stoker’s Dracula”.

Much better here are Kristin Scott Thomas as the long-suffering Mrs. Churchill, and veteran character actor Ronald Pickup as Neville Chamberlain (One of his best showings in decades). Ben Mendelsohn obviously can’t match Colin Firth as the King, but he’s perfectly fine as the thoroughly decent George V and doesn’t overdo the stammer, since this isn’t “The King’s Speech”. On the downside, one performer who even Oldman bests is Stephen Dillane who, as Halifax wears one facial expression and has one tone of voice throughout. That’s a shame because Oldman’s best acting scene is opposite Dillane, as Halifax underestimates the danger of Hitler. I also think poor Lily James is saddled with a useless role mostly consisting of reacting to Churchill and occasionally typing.

Scripted by Anthony McCarten (The terrific Stephen Hawking biopic “The Theory of Everything”), I liked how, unlike “Churchill”, this one gives us the ‘before’ story, or at least the lead-up to Churchill becoming PM. I was also glad that unlike that film (they were both released the same year, comparisons are inevitable) this portrait of Churchill isn’t one of a madman, but merely a stubborn old crank. It’s far more believable, despite Oldman’s miscasting. The film certainly deals with Churchill’s regret over Gallipoli in far less histrionic fashion than did “Churchill”. Less convincing – actually let’s just call it absolute bullshit – is the scene with Churchill on a train. No way that happened, I’m not buying it one bit. One thing the film definitely has in its favour is humour. Churchill’s bluster and temper could’ve been overbearing without a bit of levity, I think. It’s also a good-looking film as shot by Bruno Delbonnel (“Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince”, “Dark Shadows”) featuring low-level lighting without being dull, muted, and too dark to see. I also greatly enjoyed the music score by Dario Marianelli (“Atonement”, “Quartet”, “Everest”), the film’s chief asset in my view.

An OK-at-best biopic where the man is far more interesting than the politics, and sadly the man is unpersuasively played by an Oscar-winning Gary Oldman. Thus any value for me was limited here, such a shame that one thing can largely spoil the whole entity like that. Mostly good supporting cast and technical aspects, but an average film.

Rating: C+