{"id":6981,"date":"2018-01-03T08:33:42","date_gmt":"2018-01-03T13:33:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/?p=6981"},"modified":"2018-01-23T07:19:00","modified_gmt":"2018-01-23T12:19:00","slug":"darkest-hour","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/?p=6981","title":{"rendered":"Darkest Hour"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Perhaps you feel about Churchilled out, what with Netflix\u2019s The Crown<\/a><\/em> and his memorable words floating over the disheartened British soldiers in Dunkirk<\/em>, but director Joe Wright\u2019s new film (trailer<\/a>) is absolutely mesmerizing. I wish the film had gone on to present the whole rest of the war as vividly and thoughtfully, not just those desperate early days of the title.<\/p>\n

Gary Oldman as Winston looks more the role than did John Lithgow, but the power of his performance comes from truly inhabiting the part and having a script by Anthony McCarten that shuns the clich\u00e9s. Kristin Scott Thomas is brilliant as Churchill\u2019s ever-supportive wife Clementine (resembling not a little Harriet Walter in The Crown<\/em>). Lily James (Downton Abbey<\/em>\u2019s Rose, brunette this time) is sweet as his long-suffering secretary Elizabeth.<\/p>\n

What this film provides that so many gloss over is scrupulous candor about the political facts facing Churchill. He was a compromise candidate for the role of Prime Minister, and people in his own party mistrusted him. They didn\u2019t want him. The king didn’t want him. His predecessor, Neville Chamberlain (Ronald Pickup), and a strong faction, led by Lord Halifax (Stephen Dillane), advocated a peace deal with Hitler, which Churchill adamantly opposed.<\/p>\n

While today\u2019s viewers may side with Churchill on the question of whether a good treaty could have been achieved with the dictator, Wright never over-eggs the pudding by weakening Halifax\u2019s arguments. Both sides of this consequential debate are principled and passionate.<\/p>\n

Churchill was new and shaky in his position, the entire British army was stranded at Dunkirk, the European countries were overrun, France was about to fall, and America could not help (yet). It was truly Britain\u2019s Darkest Hour<\/em>. \u00a0How the PM deals with it all reflected his genius. \u201cIf it\u2019s a history lesson,\u201d says reviewer Godfrey Cheshire<\/a> at RogerEbert.com<\/em>, \u201cit\u2019s one that plays like a tightly wound, pulse-pounding thriller.\u201d<\/p>\n

And Bruno Delbonnel\u2019s cinematography offers many nice touches, too. The slow-motion views of people in the street (which you realize is Churchill\u2019s view as he passes in his car), the isolation of the elevators, the pockmarked French countryside from the air. Wonderful.<\/p>\n

Rotten Tomatoes<\/a> critics\u2019 rating: 84% ; audiences: 83%.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Perhaps you feel about Churchilled out, what with Netflix\u2019s The Crown and his memorable words floating over the disheartened British soldiers in Dunkirk, but director Joe Wright\u2019s new film (trailer) is absolutely mesmerizing. I wish the film had gone on … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"Darkest Hour - Gary Oldman in a Churchill portrayal \"for the ages.\"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[265,266,57,268,66,104],"tags":[1203,519,333,129,1202],"class_list":["post-6981","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-biography","category-history","category-movies","category-politics","category-suspense","category-the-morgue","tag-darkest-hour","tag-england","tag-london","tag-wars-and-conflicts","tag-winston-churchill"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2NkiT-1OB","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6981","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6981"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6981\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6984,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6981\/revisions\/6984"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6981"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6981"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6981"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}