'There is a battle outside and it's raging, it'll soon shake your windows and rattle your holes for the times they are a-changing'
Bob Dylan's immortal lines, so prescient in the peak of the Vietnam War, would be still astute about two decades before it was written.
The war in Europe had just begun, many a European nation was surrendering to the relentless tyranny of Herr Hitler and it was, eventually, up to a small island nation, and an Empire on its last legs, to scrape the barrel for every reserve of defiance against the tide of destruction about to sweep them across the Channel.
The fact that they succeeded at that, even with much ruin and loss of life, would itself be a wonder had not enough been said about the portly, porcine-looking cigar-smoking political bigwig who, reportedly, led Britain through the mostly dire wartime days on a rousing surge of willpower and optimism.
Joe Wright's latest film is about that man, one Winston Churchill, the Prime Minister both famous and notorious for his steely determination and his unbridled racism respectively, and how he, facing all odds stacked against him and his country's chances at victory, rose heroically, if adroitly, to the challenge of garnering enough support for the renewed war effort.
It makes for a terrific and even timely premise; in an age when most our political leaders are content only to side-step and compromise on issues, it would be heartening to see someone as shrewd as the wizened British Premier rallying around his people at a crucial juncture. And 'Darkest Hour' starts with crackling, almost electric promise. The House Of Commons erupts in unanimous dissent when Neville Chamberlain is deemed unfit for the demanding role that his recent fiasco compels. The seething and sinister looking Viscount Halifax seems like a worthy replacement but the party will only agree on the most unlikely and infamous candidate.
And as we are introduced to Churchill, a cantankerous man who is inscrutably slippery over dictating his messages and whose image is tarnished by his blunt views, the film intends, refreshingly enough, to posit him as every bit the outcaste in a political circuits domineered by soft-spoken elitists. 'A drunkard at the wheel', opines one bystander while another shrugs at him being full of 'too many ideas' at the same time and Christopher McCarten's script lingers on both these facets even as the film is focused primarily with painting an overwhelmingly larger-than-life portrait of its subject.
That portrait looks often mesmerising, as it should be in any slice of biopic meat. Bruno Delbonnel's cinematography is assuredly magnificent throughout the film (more of that later) but it shines the best when throwing its spotlight, either through sepia-tinted shadows or by the stream of daylight in the underlit House Of Commons determinedly on Churchill, endowing us with an intimacy, at least skin-deep, to see that familiar swarthy yet almost baby-like face writhing, quivering, grimacing and even grinning devilishly in turns. Gary Oldman, with invaluable help from the brilliant makeup artists, appears transformed into a devilish doppelgänger of the man whose face is so ubiquitous in those propaganda posters; as a matter of fact, he appears, with those menacing eyes, more ghoulish than the usually wry and affable essence that those pictures reek of. Just how much of this portrait is effective in conveying the confounding layers to this controversial man is something more debatable.
As it happens, those little nuanced bits and the explicitly visual replication of Churchill are all that we get. Wright's direction, and McCarten's narrative, is alas a lot more one-dimensional in their approach than expected, sticking safely to only the wrangling of political support behind the scenes of miraculous coup of the evacuation from Dunkirk rather than digging out the more troubling, complex truths, not only about the inscrutable and even insufferable man but also the political attitude of Britain towards the impending war knocking on its doors.
'Darkest Hour' is hardly a typical biography then but while it is understandable that the makers wanted to ratchet up tension to make it a thriller about the leader of the nation facing difficult, even suicidal choices, the lack of palpable tension is glaring. Too much of the script is given to only dry, even drab verbal exchanges rather than the simmering backdrop of the events and ultimately, the film nails the penultimate moment of victory, with Britain finally gearing up in all vigour to fight back Hitler's invasion, as a bit too facile and easily accomplished.
And that is a shame given how hard Wright tries to infuse it with enough stirring drama, at least when it comes to the utterly immersive, even jaw-dropping scale in which he mounts these predictable proceedings. As said before, the visuals and settings are truly absorbing and dramatic, from the fluid stylistic long-takes that tug the viewers inside the twilit War Cabinet Rooms to those sweeping overhead shots that zoom out to lend the menacing view of a Luftwaffe bomber up in the skies right down to the niftiest details like nail-polished fingers pecking at typewriter keys or the shuffling of spectators seated in the House Of Commons. The interiors of the royal palace look lavish while those lamp-lit Underground stations feel atmospheric in their grit and grime. It is a film of staggering craft desperately in need of an equally incisive and probing story.
The acting ensemble, on the other hand, is pretty uniformly solid, with my fondest praise reserved for Ronald Pickup as an enigmatic Neville Chamberlain and Ben Mendelsohn as a tight-lipped George VI. Unfortunately, the ladies don't get much to do, even when played by capable actresses. The evocative Lily James, who sparkled like bubbly champagne in the rollicking 'Baby Driver', looks still striking as ever as trusty typist Elizabeth Layton but is made to sob and simper while the always reliable Kristin Scott Thomas is full of pluck as the adorable Clemmie Churchill but is never quite convincing as the crucial character propelling her husband's path to glory.
That leaves me to talk about Oldman's much-touted turn as Churchill. Granted, the actor's uncanny ability for sinking deeply beneath the flesh and blood of his many roles, both heroic and unsavoury, is evident here in spades; he embraces the stifling makeup and enacts the hunched stride and mannerisms with gamely spontaneity and, in one helpless confrontation with the reluctant Franklin Roosevelt, startling emotional pathos. But there is ultimately something underwhelming and obvious way his arc is sketched out. Given his repertoire in more sensational previous performances, especially as the cold-blooded yet vulnerable George Smiley, this is just another great act, just nothing as spectacular as being hailed.
That is more of a problem with the film than with the performer. Eventually, the Churchill of 'Darkest Hour' comes off as a blubbering, moist-eyed leader who, after that bombastic scene with the daily Underground commuters (one that belongs ideally to a Kabir Khan film), rises to his real strengths in statecraft instead of being, already, a shrewd manipulator who was perfect for the difficult situation facing them all. More accomplished films like 'Gandhi' and 'Lincoln' portrayed their titular legends leading their nations to revolution and redemption with a blend of adroit smarts and strength of will; this film asks us instead to have, to quote the best song by the Rolling Stones, 'some sympathy' for a man who was always a cunning and intelligent daredevil.
My Rating: 3 Stars Out Of 5
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