Darkest Hour

Movie Review #6971 DARKEST HOUR.

Far, far superior retelling of the Churchill story, or at least part of it, than last year's CHURCHILL.

This one focuses on his appointment as British Prime Minister through to his leading the country in defiance of Hitler's aggression, even as the British Expeditionary Force is caught in a German army stranglehold on the coast of France.

Man-of-a-thousand-faces Gary Oldman is the rotund himself and Kristin Scott Thomas the long-suffering Clementine, who is constantly holding up his pillar as he battles factions within his own party who would seek to enter into peace negotiations with Hitler, via of all people Benito Mussolini.

We see both a strong and a vulnerable Churchill, superbly portrayed by Mr Oldman who finally resorts to some fairly interesting opinion/information-gathering before launching into his 'fight them on the beaches' spiel.

Can't fault the cinematography nor the script and the amusing interplay between Churchill and the king is nicely sequenced in between Winston's frustrations with Chamberlain and Viscount Halifax, who keeps threatening to resign (dunno why Winston didn't just sack him!).

As you can probably guess, the stand out by country mile is Oldman although Scott Thomas is pretty dazzling too given that her screen time is much less. Interesting to remember that Gary Oldman played Sid Vicious in the Sid and Nancy biopic in the mid80's so quite a turn.

I rarely do this but for me it's a 10/10.