The Darkest Hour is an instantly recognisable Joe Wright film, alongside Atonement and Anna Karenina, (hardly surprisingly so with the same Cine-photographer, Production Designer and Set Dresser). The film’s look is utterly convincing, and the Joe Wright fondness of cameras shots that zoom upwards into the sky, or pan over the landscape from a great height (I noticed seven instances), plus the occasional slow-mo tableaux, tended to enhance rather than obtrude. Joe is a 'theatrical' film maker.
The performances are remarkable. I soon stopped trying to see Gary Oldman under the proscetics, as I was so caught up in Churchill’s complex, sometimes contradictory, thought and feeling patterns, thoughts and feelings that often did not need to to be voiced thanks to the subtlety of Oldman’s performance. How he and his make-up/proscetics artist managed that I do not know. Kirstin Scott Thomas has less to work with, as her Clemmie is presented in the simpler terms of her absolute love and loyalty, and the concomitant sacrifice and discipline they demanded, literally serving her husband's ambition. Some words from a letter Clemmie wrote to her husband in 1940 are here used as part of a conversation where she tells her husband “I must confess I have noticed a deterioration in your manner and how you are not so kind as you used to be....I cannot bear that those who serve the Country and yourself should not love you as well admire and respect you.” Later, in one fleeting moment, we see how much Churchill needs her, depends on her, and seeks her approval. That is done with no words, just a look and a physical attitude adopted by Oldman. Brilliant.
The other major players, Chamberlain, Halifax, and King George are presented well, each of them wrestling with their personal and common agendas.
The narrative covers less than a month, starting on 9th May 1940, leading us from the breakdown of the Chamberlain government through the internal Tory battle to find a coalition leader to unite Parliament and shape the future, either through seeking peace terms with Hitler or rescuing the 400,000 British troops stranded at Dunkirk and pursuing the battle.
Obviously a lot of the script is drawn from the historical record, either with direct quotes or in the portrayal of relationships – crucially between Churchill and King George, Chamberlain, Halifax, and Eden (a rather bland portrayal), all of whom are seeking the best way forward. There are also however fictional exchanged between Churchill and Elizabeth Layton, his Dictation Secretary. Layton indeed did do that job, but was just one of a team of women working in shifts to take down Churchill's words at any hour of the day or night, but the device works well. Then there is the already famous scene when Churchill uses a short Tube trip to ‘consult the people’ and pick up themes and phrases he will then employ in his ‘We will fight them on the beaches’ speech. I have no idea why the film’s makers felt that they – or Churchill – needed to invent that. Of course in the film it is his only contact with anyone outside his own aristocratic or political circles, circles in which everyone has an agenda, and where he has to watch every word of his own, aware that any of them could be used against him. So this speech, which swung Parliament behind him and saw off Halifax’s tactic of negotiating peace, sprang from his own genius rather than this fictional encounter. Why not let us see that?
There are other issues, including Churchill’s brief refusal to announce the utter collapse of the French Army, as to do so would force his hand towards negotiations, and his sacrifice of the Army Brigade holding Calais in order to draw the German forces away from attacking the Dunkirk beaches. I think the film is honest about these issues. Some think that the first tactic endorsed the ‘end justify the means’ ethic, and of course the sacrifice of some men to save more must be an emotionally, if not ethically, difficult one. Churchill was in a position that was created by the evil of others, and in an evil situation we cannot always find a 'good solution'. Nor do we always know what the 'lesser of evils' is, ahead of their consequences working themselves out. To pretend otherwise is to under-estimate - or fail to portray - the power of evil, and the cost of opposing it.
Some people have commented on the current relevance of the movie, seeing at as a ‘Remainer text’. It is certainly true that most of the artistic community in Britain and Europe is dismayed by the prospect of Brexit, but it is also true that Churchill himself was very much in favour of a united Europe, which must ‘inevitably be accompanied step by step with a parallel policy of closer political unity.’ He was the initiator of The Hague Conference in 1948 which met with the specific objective of promoting this. Churchill saw such unity as unavoidable if Europe was to live in peace, and avoid repeating the horrors of the two World Wars.
So; I enjoyed the film, greatly admired the performances – especially Gary Oldman’s - thought the look, feel and sound of it worked well, and appreciate the straightforward narrative. I think the invented conversations ring true, apart from the ‘Tube Scene’, which I think reflects either a loss of nerve or an unnecessary artistic flourish.
At the end of his 2001 biography of Churchill Roy Jenkins compared him with Gladstone, who he had initially considered ‘the greater man’. But, Jenkins wrote,
“In the course of writing I have changed my mind. I now put Churchill, with all his idiosyncrasies, his indulgences, his occasional childishness, but also with his genius, his tenacity and his persistent ability, right or wrong, successful or unsuccessful, to be larger than live, as the greatest human being ever occupy 10 Downing Street.”
You may or may not agree, but this film will certainly give grist to the mill.
