2017 historical drama
Rating: 15/20
Plot: Winston Churchill becomes the prime minister as England wrestles with capitulation or fighting back as Hitler attempts to take over the world.
This blogger is too classy to start fat-shaming famous people, but man, Gary Oldman has really let himself go.
This and Dunkirk make a great companion pieces as they're two different sides of the same historical coin. Nolan's picture has battlefield action and dog-fights, but this drama is just as action-packed with words replacing bullets and typewriters replacing bombers. This really is about the role of language in conflict, and least when it's not pulling up Winston's shirt and blowing raspberries on his bulbous tummy. Frenzied rhetoric, actors playing characters in states of turmoil spitting lines at each other in darkened and/or subterranean rooms, ideologies clash like sharpened swords. Words boom like tanks.
With words and the power of them being so important to Darkest Hour, the screenplay has no choice but to be good. And Anthony McCarten, the guy behind The Theory of Everything, does a great job with what could have easily ended up a stuffy historical snoozefest. Apparently, Churchill had a sense of humor, and along with his resolve and leadership, that's what really stands out about the guy. There's drama throughout this as decisions are made that would determine whether or not England would survive have to be made, but there's just the right amount of humor peppered throughout as well. Along with a little bit of style (Joe Wright sure loves his overhead shots, doesn't he?), this is never boring.
Lots of credit has to go to Gary Oldman and his prosthetics and fat suit for creating a very human Churchill. This performance moves beyond the superficialities of a historical impression to really help an audience 70-some years later understand the internal struggles of this figure. I don't really know anything about Winston Churchill, other than about how sexy the guy was. Oldman and company do a terrific job making him into a man who steps up as a hero rather than making him a hero who just happens to find himself in a movie. Character nuances, a big cigar budget, an impossible amount of make-up, lots of mumbling and sputtering, both gesticulations and the lack of gesticulations. It's a performance that locks Oldman in as one of this generation's finest actors.
4 comments:
I thought this was a fairly pedestrian TV movie of the week. It was just not that well made, and the scene on the subway? It was just bad. That said, its a very interesting story, and Oldman is always good. I give it a 12.
The scene in the subway was awful. However, I'm not sure why you're comparing this to a TV movie. It was certainly very well shot, though the director might have overused these sweeping overhead shots. It looked good, Oldman (and others) were fantastic, and yes, it's a great story.
Probably the second weakest of the Best Picture nominees. It's better than The Post though.
I really liked this movie. Gary Oldman nails bringing out the character (the performance) and the entire filming team nails bringing out the human (the prosthetics, the dialogue, the blocking, the shots). Speaking of the shots, I thought the direction and cinematography was awesome. It felt very chiaroscuro with the lights and darks. So many scenes where the sunlight just pours in light a spotlight for the stage.
My favorite piece of this movie was the humanity and the emotion brought to the audience. I've seen a documentary on Churchill and WWII, and I've sat through a few high school history classes on WWII and the great figures that led it, and I've let Sterling Ament lecture me at his kitchen table on Churchill's brilliance and vast intelligence. But I've never looked at it from a human or emotional perspective. All of the rest made me far removed from the people and situation; this movie brought me into the room with them. And as eye-rolling as that subway scene was, it was a compilation of many moments where Churchill actually did speak to the common person and get their take and opinions on the nation's options. The people gave him strength when the oligarchs wouldn't, and that was the point of that scene. It was necessary to get that point, and the film used that scene to get the point across...I forgave the movie of that. 16/20
I'm not the biggest fan of historical dramas, and that's probably especially true of ones that take place in England. I imagined this would be pretty stuffy, and I would have probably avoided it if I didn't want to see Oldman's performance so much. I'm with you though. The way this was shot gave it an unexpected vivaciousness that made it very watchable.
I don't know what chiaroscuro means. You can't be throwing words like that at me. I'm a blogger of less-than-average intelligence.
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