The British sure do love the story of Dunkirk. It’s a bit of an odd fascination really, considering Dunkirk was the moment the Germans sent their whole army fleeing across the channel. Yet all these years later they’re still telling the story. Twice in one year, in fact. While Dunkirk the film is about the battle itself, Darkest Hour is a biopic about Winston Churchill’s stalwart leadership during said battle. The scope of Darkest Hour is both broader and more intimate than it’s counterpart, spending a great deal of time on the personal struggles of Churchill and the political scheming that surrounded his appointment as prime minister, but the titular “darkest hour” remains the battle of Dunkirk. The two film’s complement each other nicely. In fact, if viewed alongside another unrelated production, The King’s Speech (a Best Picture winner), one could enjoy an unintentional trilogy about this one moment in British history.
Setting related films aside for one moment, Darkest Hour is first and foremost a historical biopic carried forward on the strength of Gary Oldman’s acting talents. The veteran actor gives what my well be a career best performance as Winston Churchill.
Wartime leaders are often remembered through rose colored glasses, but Oldman imbues Churchill with a curmudgeonly humanity that reveals the flawed soul behind the legacy. In short: he’s a foul old codger. Trademark jowls all a’quiver with mumbled rage and spittle, he is an unpleasant git to his underlings and enemies alike. Yet his unwavering confidence in his country and people render him impossible not to like. The high moments of the film are his inspirational speeches, all of which Oldman delivers with aplomb, evoking memories of two similar Best Picture winners: Lincoln and the aforementioned The King’s Speech.
Speaking of The King’s Speech, there’s a direct link to that film present in Darkest Hour in the form of King George VI, who’s memorable stammer is present and accounted for even if Colin Firth is MIA. The stiff, strained relationship between king and prime minister is fleshed out more in this film, giving us another unintentional complementary relationship between movies, one which reveals the different aspects of political leadership in wartime Great Britain.
While The King’s Speech is more about the public’s opinion of it’s wartime leaders, Darkest Hour is about it’s actual leaders, the political machinations which put them in place, and the schemes that threaten to compromise them. Churchill’s fiery personality gained him his position, but it also threatened to be his undoing. His predecessor lost the position of prime minister by being too soft on Germany, but Churchill’s blind insistence on victory at any cost alarmed fellow politicians. As his opponent’s laid verbal traps in his path, the Germans pushed the soldiers at Dunkirk ever closer to the sea. The emotional climax of the film, and by extension, the fate of all Great Britain and even the course of world history, revolves around Dunkirk.
Darkest Hour would make a fantastic climax for a three part movie marathon about Great Britain’s wartime struggle. The King’s Speech sets the stage with the perspective of the royal family leading up to the war, Dunkirk gives us an intimate portrayal of the most pivotal battle of that war, and Darkest Hour paints a wider portrait of the political landscape surrounding that battle. Together, they’d make a fantastic complement to an afternoon of tea and crumpets.
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