Darkest Hour

The trick this film pulls off is that we all know how it ends. That’s how we are getting to see the story played out. Winston Churchill is a symbol of Britishness (for better or worse) because of the turn in the Second World War that resulted in an eventual allied victory. At the point of Dunkirk, however, the situation was awful and the Conservative Party was riven with chaos as Neville Chamberlain lost the support of the House, and a coalition government—and someone to lead it—was urgently sought. Anyone but Churchill, and probably Viscount Halifax—and a negotiated settlement with the Führer.

Joe Wright’s tremendous film takes this story and makes Winston Churchill into a brittle and maybe even flawed hero. Gary Oldman put on a fat-suit and chained expensive cigars in order to seem like the Churchill figure of legend. This Winston knows of his reputation: everything from the failure of Gallipoli to the support of Edward’s relationship with Wallis Simpson. Nobody in the government including Chamberlain (Ronald Pickup) thinks that he will last. Through the device of a new secretary Elizabeth Layton (Lily James—lovely!) we get to know Winston, and his relationship with Clementine (Kristin Scott Thomas). He is a loud and intimidating figure to a young woman, but Clementine deals with him firmly, and with a wonderfully realised feeling of very long-standing love. The relationship between Churchill and Layton serves to advance the plot a little as he takes her into the restricted area of the Map Room in order to explain the Dunkirk situation to her. We also learn a little of her life and her personal connection to the war.

Not that characters like Halifax (Stephen Dillane) are drawn as the enemy. The trick is to forget the history and let the story work on you at face value. All of Europe is defeated and holding out means more British soldiers dying, and the First World War is a fresh memory. Ben Mendelsohn’s George VI is a kind of bridge between the symbol of the nation, and the draft plan to remove the Royal Family to Canada. Winston Churchill even gets on the phone to President Roosevelt, but he can offer nothing very much because of the United States’ neutrality act. It’s a profoundly sad moment as Churchill is a man who looks about to be destroyed in spite of his own determination.

The way the film emerges from this is a very ‘Hollywood’ trick as Winston takes the argument to the person in the street, or—literally—on an Underground train. There he learns that the people’s resolve to fight is unshakable. It’s a real masterstroke because it leads Winston Churchill to alight at Westminster and face down his party before delivering ‘We shall fight them on the beaches…’—mobilising the English language, as one of his falling critics remarks. This is a patriotic film without a flag being waved: the story of a man who didn’t allow his own flaws—or his enemies—to defeat them even as they appeared about to do so very crushingly. Gary Oldman is wonderful as Churchill but it’s a triumph for all performers.