The Darkest Hour: Great Acting, Story Line Pathetic

   The Darkest Hour is not a documentary.  It is a historical drama, meaning that the writer and director are allowed to imagine events that might have happened, though there might not be evidence that it in fact did happen. I enjoyed it very much because of the cast, which is a five star case.  Gary Oldman is very convincing as  Winston Churchill despite being hampered by a weak script. Oldman channels the Prime Minister's powerful personality, although the script portrays him as a bumbling fool.  Like Donald Trump, Churchill lives in an alternative reality, disbelieving that the Germans have actually invaded France.  
     In reality Churchill was First Lord of the Admiralty at the outbreak of the war and had held several cabinet positions.  He had consistently warned of the warlike intentions of Hitler, and the need to bolster the nation's defenses.  It is inconceivable that Churchill would have been in denial of the reality of the German invasion as portrayed in the movie.  But Gary Oldman's portrayal is so outstanding that it overcomes the pathetic attempts of the scriptwriters and directors to make Churchill into an unsympathetic character.    I think Oldman might contend for an Oscar.

         Kristin Scott Thomas is outstanding as Clementine Churchill.  She is behind the scenes, but there is no doubt that she is vastly more intelligent, wise and emotionally balanced than her husband.  It is she who provides her bumbling husband with guidance while receiving no credit for having done so.  

Clementine Churchill is much more sophisticated, intelligent and wise that her blustering husband.  Crusty old Winston, on the other hand, has the IQ of a grapefruit.  He definitely married over his head.  

      In addition, Ben Mendelsohn is very convincing as King George VI. You can easily believe that you've been transported via time machine to meet the real King, and you can share his concerns and motivations.  Both Ronald Pickup, a doppelganger for Neville Chamberlain, and Stephen Dillane  are much more sympathetic and rational characters than Churchill. It is easy to believe the Appeasement policy was the more rational policy compared to Churchill's hard headedness and emotional decisions.  

    Darkest Hour attempts to portray Winston Churchill in the most unflattering light possible.  Though good at writing speeches and giving them, at his core he is an untalented, unintelligent man who becomes Prime Minister more or less by accident.  He makes snap decisions that affect the future of the world based on emotions.  Were it not for the counsel of his wife, and does not appear to be capable of much independent thought.  I asked my 15 year old daughter, who is not terribly familiar with the Prime Minister, what her opinion of him was, based on the movie.  She said, "His primary characteristic is that he is insane."  
    Well, okay, the purpose of the film's creators is to tear down the legend.  French diplomats rolling their eyes and shake their heads at how disconnected he is from reality.  The problem is that when Churchill reads the actual speeches from 1940, Gary Oldman's portrayal is so strong that it overcomes the intention of the scriptwriter to tear him down.  These speeches simply can not have been given by the tempermental madman that Oldman seems to have been tasked to portray. 

     Similarly, in the movie, Franklin Dr. Roosevelt snickers at Churchill's plea for help, citing the Neutrality Act as the reason for inaction. Roosevelt muses that it might be legal to delivering plane to the Canadian border and having them pulled over the border by horses.  Churchill doesn't take him seriously. The implication was that the US was not going to deliver aircraft purchased by the United Kingdom  (again, I asked my daughter whether she felt that the President intended to assist Churchill at all, and she thought the answer was clearly "no").  But in fact they really did use overland transport of aircraft to Canda, as a way to get around legislative restrictions. Such sales had actually begun in February 1940, or BEFORE the German invasion.  In reality the Neutrality Act was significantly modified in November 1939 as a consequence of the Polish invasion. The invasion woke up--at least partially--the global community to the menace of Nazism.   

     The US had been feverishly supplying the Western powers with weapons, and in fact were starting to ship a new high octane aviation fuel (courtesy of the Houdry Catalytic Cracking process) that helped British Spitfires outfly the German Messerschmidts in the Battle of Britain two months later.  Put that in your pipe and smoke it.  

      Again, it's a historical drama, not a documentary.  So if in this movie the characters behave differently than the historical record shows, that's probably within the purview of the writers and directors.
     By the way, the costumes and sets are absolutely wonderful and make the movie worth seeing just for that.  You can believe that you are actually in 1940 and you are seeing the real Winston Churchill (drunken buffoon or not, Oldman's portrayal is captivating). 
    My conclusion is: yes, see this movie. If you are into the craft of movie making and you enjoy great acting performances, it is excellent. But if you are hoping for historical accuracy, you may be disappointed, as many of the events are fictional.