Rating: 3.5/5 stars
“The Darkest Hour,” a film directed by Joe Wright (“Pan”), takes place in World War II-era United Kingdom. As Europe started to fall, the only major nation that remained untouched at this point was the UK. Neville Chamberlain (Ronald Pickup, “The Happy Prince”) is prime minister before and at the start of the war. However, a lot of politicians think that he is no longer a good choice, especially not during a time of war where the world could be ending. The only person that Chamberlain, his political party and King George VI (Ben Mendelsohn, “Bloodline”) could give the position without compromising their morals was the notoriously unpredictable Winston Churchill (Gary Oldman, “Hunter Killer”).
The film spans from them deciding to give him the position of prime minister all the way until he decides to fight the fascists until the end of the war. What made this film interesting was that it was not a one-sided perspective of Churchill’s rise to power, nor did it idolize or romanticize him. On the contrary, it showed some of his darker qualities, such as alcoholism, pickiness and short temperedness, as much as his more positive ones. Since he was already known to be an emotional and volatile person, his opponents felt very passionately about removing him from power once he was in the position. While Churchill was attempting to make these decisions, viewers could see his opposition realizing that there was more to him than anticipated, and most ended up rallying behind his decision to not negotiate with the Nazis.
David Malinowski (“Breathe”), the man in charge of Oldman’s prosthetic makeup, had the most daunting task. He had to make a thin man look larger in both the face and stomach, all while maintaining the malleability of actual skin. He made Oldman look so different from what he truly looks like that most did not recognize him until almost halfway through the film.
Some of the things that did not go so well were the accents. Two characters specifically, King George VI and Neville Chamberlain, had trouble maintaining their English accent throughout the whole film. Both of them either had a lisp or a French accent, depending on the line or the scene. This, while sitting in the theater, pulled some abruptly from World War II-era England to the movies. Upon further research, it was found that perhaps Mendelsohn was attempting to bring more life to his character, as King George VI was known to have a lisp from when he was younger. Either way, this fell flat and removed from the otherwise gorgeous portrayal of Churchill, Elizabeth Layton (Lily James, “Baby Driver”) and Clemmie (Kristin Scott Thomas, “Brexit Shorts”).
This film was well executed and extremely immersive, up until the ending. It cut off rather abruptly, and viewers found themselves, even after a two-hour movie, wanting more. It was almost as though they wrote the script until the end of World War II, realized that they could not have a five-hour long film and decided to instead cut it off around the two-hour mark.
If viewers like history, want to know more about England during World War II or just want to see Oldman nail the role, this movie is a good fit.
Image from Universal Pictures UK via YouTube.com
