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Darkest Hour Review

What I liked: Winston Churchill is a fascinating leader who accomplished remarkable things in a very trying time. He was also stubborn and abrasive and had a whole slough of other personal failings. The film did a good job of capturing his skills as a leader, the gravity of the situation, and many of his odd quirks. I liked the actor who played Churchill, I think he did a great job. And I liked that they were able to work in as many of his ridiculous quotes as they did.  Normally I don’t like lots of extreme close ups in movies but they worked in this one. I like the War Rooms but more just because they are cool not necessarily because they are particularly well depicted in the movie. I like the reactions of the Londoners when they meed Churchill in the underground.  I like that between this movie, Kings Speech, and Dunkirk we have the initial phase of the UK’s involvement in WWII dramatized from three very different perspectives. Although it is a matter of record, I like that England did not surrender or get beaten in WWII.

What I didn’t: When the entire screen fills up with the date I get nervous. Why do we need a 20 foot tall 25 May? Every time it came up I did frantic memory checks from high school history to see if that particular date was significant. Ms Hoffstadter would be sadly disappointed in my recall skills. I don’t know who decorated Churchill’s bedroom but they did a terrible job. The rest of the house seemed to be fine but the best I could tell he slept in the part of the basement where they stored old broken stuff. I wanted to see the RAF pull bombers across the Canadian border with horses. If you bring something like that up you are obligated to put it on screen. I’m getting conflicting etiquette directives from the Crown and this movie. I would like definitive clarification about when (if ever) it is acceptable to sit in the presence of royalty, because, you know, I plan on doing that a lot in the near future. The famous, we will fight on the beaches and the landing grounds speech was well delivered and moving but I will I thought the delivery in Dunkirk was more moving. (I may or may not have had a back to back of those two movies. It’s really really cold out. Don’t judge)

Who should watch this? WWII buffs, people who like Winston Churchill (those two may be largely overlapping populations), people who like movies with lots of political posturing, people who like war movies but have an aversion to shooting and bodies, people who like historical dramas.

Would I watch it again? Yes, but I would probably not do a double feature again, that was a bit much.
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