Review: ‘Darkest Hour,’ or the Great Man Theory of History (and Acting

In the late spring of 1940, German forces invaded Belgium and France and pushed most of the British army onto a beach in the French coastal town of Dunkirk. Neville Chamberlain, the British prime minister best known (then and still) for his policy of appeasing Hitler, was replaced by Winston Churchill, whose first weeks as head of the government — culminating in the Dunkirk evacuation — are the subject of “Darkest Hour,” Joe Wright’s new film. (The evacuation itself was reconstructed in Christopher Nolan’s “Dunkirk,” released in July.)
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Considered as history, “Darkest Hour,” written by Anthony McCarten (“The Theory of Everything”), offers the public a few new insights and details about the. Churchill is disliked by many of his colleagues in the Conservative Party (notably Chamberlain and his vulpine sidekick, Viscount Halifax) and distrusted by King George VI. The political situation is shaky, the military reports dire. The new prime minister, a man of large emotions and larger appetites, who drinks whiskey with breakfast and is rarely without a cigar, is plagued by frustration and doubt as he tries to navigate between two bad options. Will Britain enter into a ruinous war or submit to humiliating and most likely temporary peace on terms dictated by Hitler?
The contours of this story are reasonably familiar. The outcome even more so. (Just in case, a helpful text before the final credits reminds us that Germany eventually lost the war.) Churchill himself is among the most revered and studied figures of 20th-century history: a synonym for leadership; a great man in an age of monsters; a source of pithy quotations, some of which he actually said; an example to be cited by political mediocrities in need of an ego boost.
And, of course, an irresistible role for actors of every shape and size. (His American counterpart in this regard is not Franklin D. Roosevelt, Churchill’s partner and peer, but Lyndon B. Johnson, who also possessed impressive jowls and a colorful way with words.) Gary Oldman, aided by diligent makeup artists and propelled by his own unmatched craft and discipline, embraces the task with almost palpable delight. The challenges facing Churchill are of lethal seriousness, but the key to his effectiveness is his capacity for pleasure. He enjoys the push and pull of politics, the intellectual labor of problem-solving and the daily adventure of being himself. In grasping that joy, Mr. Oldman partakes of it and passes it along to the audience. He is having fun, playing the part in every sense. And his blustery, blubbery charm, backed as it is by a sly and acute intelligence, is hard to resist.
Apart from Halifax and Chamberlain, desiccated aristo puddings played by Stephen Dillane and Ronald Pickup, nobody makes much of an effort. Churchill is regarded with frank adoration by the camera and by the people, the women in particular, charged with the tasks of attending and indulging him. Kristin Scott Thomas is his wife, Clementine Churchill, a woman of brisk confidence and ironic disposition who long ago made peace with her secondary place in his public life. Lily James is his secretary, Elizabeth Layton, a clever and wide-eyed English rose who types Churchill’s correspondence and chastely buoys his morale at difficult moments.

King George is played by Ben Mendelsohn as a weary and aloof sovereign — a chillier, sadder fellow than the version incarnated by Colin Firth in “The King’s Speech.” “Darkest Hour,” a companion to “Dunkirk,” is also in several senses a sequel to “The King’s Speech,” a mildly enjoyed best picture winner. It is similarly a movie about the production of an important piece of rhetoric, a “mobilization of the English language” in the service of a vital and righteous cause.

And like “The King’s Speech,” Mr. Wright’s film is a serviceable enough historical drama. But like “Dunkirk,” it falls back on an idealized notion of the English character that feels, in present circumstances, less nostalgic than downright reactionary, and as empty as those ubiquitous “Keep Calm and Carry On” internet memes. Rather than invite the audience to think about the difficulties of democratic governance at a time of peril, the filmmakers promote passivity and hero-worship, offering not so much a Great Man Theory as a great man fetish. Their sham populism is most evident in a ridiculous scene in which Churchill rides the London Underground and meets The People, a motley mass of stiff upper lips and brimming eyes.

Churchill’s resolve, like the bravery of the soldiers, airmen and ordinary Britons in “Dunkirk,” is offered not as a rebuke to the current generation, but rather as a sop, an easy and complacent fantasy of Imperial gumption and national unity. Standing up to the Nazis, an undeniably brave and good thing to have done, is treated like a moral check that can be cashed in perpetuity. “Darkest Hour” is proud of its hero, proud of itself and proud to have come down on the right side of history nearly 80 years after the fact. It wants you to share that pride, and to claim a share of it. But we have nothing to be proud of.