Gary Oldman's Winston Churchill confronts Dunkirk - Darkest Hour Review

I'm not gonna beat around the bush, it IS my favourite movie of 2018 so far.

Quick disclosure; this review will contain minor spoilers. Heck the movie's based on historical events, hardly a spoiler.. duhh

Darkest Hour is directed by Joe Wright and tells the chronological events of Winston Churchill following his early days as prime minister of the United Kingdom - as Hitler closes in on Britain during World War II. It starred Gary Oldman as Winston Churchill, Kristin Scott Thomas as Clementine Churchill, Ben Mendelsohn as George VI, Lily James as Elizabeth Layton, Ronald Pickup as Neville Chamberlain.

Now I am not an expert in Britain History but I have always been somewhat fascinated by their monarchy and royal traditions. It started when I watched The King's Speech (2010) which highlights the attempt of King George VI (played by Colin Firth); in order to cope with his stammer, sees a man named Lionel Logue (played by Geoffrey Rush), an Australian speech and language therapist.

Then, Netflix releases two seasons of The Crown (2016, 2017) that unfolds and examines the reign of Queen Elizabeth II (played by Claire Foy). The first season also includes John Lithgow as Winston Churchill in which he received significant praise. That was my first exposure of Winston performed by an actor, and I thought he was really good! Having said that,- Gary Oldman is on a whole nother level.

Oldman encaptured Churchill from his fiery passion to his most vulnerable form. Once the fat suite effect wear's off, we immediately see him engulfed in the role. I remember a scene where Churchill was on a subway, conversing with the commoners around him. I gottta say, that scene made me chocked up a bit. My favourite line is when Chruchill shouted to Neville in the War Parliament meeting (this is not a spoiler by the way, its in the trailer) - ''You cannot reason with a tiger when your head is in its mouth!''

One of the things that Joe Wright did in order to highlight that this movie is happening in a finite amount of time is that he depicts the calendar moving on screen; May 10th - then changed to May 15th. etc etc. You'll become really overwhelmed in such a short period of time. You have to understand, Churchill becomes Prime Minister unexpectedly and the weight of the world drops on his shoulder tremendously. So one of the beautiful things of Darkest Hour is that in amidst of all the craziness that is happening in World War II, it shows the humane side of Churchill. He is often potrayed as someone who is brazen, with heart of steel. Admiringly, this movie does not shy away from showing his humanity. It potrays Winston Churchill's relationship with his party, the parliament, his friend, his enemy, his personal secretary, and most important of all, his beloved wife.

There is also no doubt the supporting cast is vital in this story. At first I thought Lily James's character is rather useless but as the movie goes on I realized that her character act as an avatar for us as the audience. We started looking at the story and the man; Churchill from her point of view and I ended up loving her. Ben Mendelson is a great actor, no doubt but when he was announced to play King George, I had my doubts. Lo and behold I am wrong (hardly a surprise) and he is perfection! His performance and chemistry with Oldman in that lunch scene crack me up.

This movie is beautiful in every aspect, and it makes me appreciate Dunkirk (2017) even more. While Dunkirk depicts the evacuation on the ground, Darkest Hour tells us the 'behind the scenes' of that famous decision of Churchill to issued an order for all boats or ships to help the country to bring the Britain soldiers back home rather than let them die in France.

The movie is currently nominated in 6 Academy Awards categories and one of them is for Best Actor- Gary Oldman. Having watched the movie, I'm rooting for him. His performance is phenomenal. Not to mention the amount of time that he has to spend on the makeup chair. Let's give the guy his first award Academy. It's long overdue as it is!

Darkest Hour is currently playing in Malaysian theaters.

-mrM