When I saw Dunkirk
back in July, I can safely say that at no point in the film did I think to
myself, “This movie could use more Gary Oldman.” And yet, here we are, with Darkest Hour as the unintentional other
half of Dunkirk, treating at length
the only part of the event that Christopher Nolan didn’t recount in full – the
homefront. There is probably a very intriguing “Dunkirk Saga” to be crafted
from editing the films together, though I think Hollywood’s efforts would be
better spent at giving us more films of Oldman as Winston Churchill.Gary Oldman stars as Winston Churchill, appointed Prime Minster of the United Kingdom after the appeasement policies of Neville Chamberlain (Ronald Pickup) become untenable. Churchill, his wife Clemmie (Kristin Scott Thomas), and his secretary Elizabeth Layton (Lily James) move to 10 Downing Street to prepare for war – or peace – with Nazi Germany as it marches further into France.
It need not be said – for everyone already seems to be in unanimous agreement – that Gary Oldman gives a bravura performance as Churchill. Oldman’s name is being bandied about once more for an Oscar, to which I have to say it’d be about time. As Churchill, Oldman is (as ever) chameleonic, disappearing behind the jowls, the glasses, and the cigars in a performance that is not quite impersonation and certainly far from caricature, though it does resemble an uncanny impression in that Oldman is difficult to recognize in character. There’s something in the eyes, the voice, the stance, yes, but by and large it’s quite easy to disregard the artifice and believe we are watching Churchill himself. And while many times we clamor for a sequel because we want to know what happens next, I’m first in line for Darkest Hour II (“Dark Harder?”) because I want to spend more time in the company of a performance this fine.
The time frame of Darkest Hour is quite tight – less than a month – which is all the more astonishing when you consider what was asked of Churchill in those brisk days. To inherit an office diminished by one’s predecessor, and to be faced with several forms of political and military extinction, with little more than the English language as your principal weapon of defense... well, it’s not for nothing that Churchill’s wife at one point remarks that her husband has “the weight of the world on your shoulders.” A brief telephone call with Franklin D. Roosevelt might seem a moment for the Americans in the audience to feel involved, but it quickly becomes a reminder of how maddeningly unhelpful the isolationist America was at the time and how bitterly alone Churchill must have felt as he stared down the barrel of Hitler’s gun. “It’s late,” he breathes wearily, a sense of hopelessness edging into the film’s middle.
Director Joe Wright is perhaps still best known for directing the first-rate Atonement, so it comes as a slight shock that here too Wright takes the opportunity to revisit Dunkirk – recall, James McAvoy finds himself separated from Keira Knightley by the evacuation. Earlier this year, Christopher Nolan set his exploration of humanized hopelessness and fractured time at Dunkirk, but here Wright treats the event as the tipping point of a global conflagration, an Atlas-like burden which Churchill must shoulder with the full knowledge that the fate of the very world rests upon his response. But Wright is careful to keep his Churchill human, too; rather than err on the side of hagiography, Wright presents a Churchill wrestling with his doubts and willing to laugh at his faults, as when he initially mangles the “V for Victory” gesture.
At the heart of the film is a moment that shouldn’t work as well as it does. Having hung Chekhov’s gun on the wall when he mentions offhandedly he’s never ridden the subway, Churchill takes to the underground and mingles with the people. It feels initially like Screenwriting 101, setting Churchill amongst the proletariat, but the scene works so well that I didn’t want it to end. In that cramped subway car – and the film is, if nothing else, devoutly claustrophobic – Oldman imbues Churchill with such grace, humor, and candor that it’s not hard to believe a nation (indeed, a globe) was charmed by such a charismatic leader.
No comments:
Post a Comment