DECEMBER 7, 2017
Ever since “Darkest Hour” premiered in September in Telluride, the word was out that Gary Oldman was a shoo-in to win the Oscar for Best Actor for his performance as Winston Churchill in “Darkest Hour,” Joe Wright’s film that expands around the country on Friday. And in the three months since, I have no reason to doubt that original assessment. If you have rent money to bet, put it on Oldman to win.
But is it the best performance by an actor this year? Let’s just say that it’s the kind of performance that wins an actor an Oscar and leave it at that.
And I’m not complaining. I’ve loved Gary Oldman’s work from “Sid and Nancy” on, even when he sank to begin playing a series of Eastern European villains, sadly capped this year by August’s “The Hitman’s Bodyguard.” Winston Churchill is just the kind of role that Gary Oldman deserves, and he’s very very good in it.
Still, he’s the third actor in a parade of Churchills this year. There’s been Brian Cox in “Churchill” (in and out of theaters this summer), as well as John Lithgow in his Emmy-winning turn as Churchill in Netflix’s “The Crown.” And, as “Darkest Hour” also takes place during Churchill’s time as Prime Minister during Dunkirk, it’s the third Dunkirk-based movie this year after this spring’s “Their Finest” and, of course, the Christopher Nolan “Dunkirk,” which is returning to theaters for Oscar runs this week.
So there’s a little bit of a been-there, done-that vibe to “Darkest Hour,” which hasn’t stopped critics from falling all over themselves in praising it. I’m a little more skeptical, although, I’ll grant you, it is one of the better Churchill biographies. Still, it covers the much-traveled time period when, after Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain is forced out after being a wuss with Hitler, Churchill is reluctantly brought back to power.
There are some Conservative Party snakes-in-the-grass — Chamberlain and his aide-de-camp Viscount Halifax (Stephen Dillane) — lurking just in case Churchill trips up. Both are urging the Conservative cause of striking a deal with Hitler, while Churchill holds fast to a plan to battle for victory, culminating in his iconic “We will fight them on the beaches” speech to which Oldman gives a full-throated delivery here. (The same speech is a climax of Nolan’s “Dunkirk.”)
As a political junkie, I usually like those scenes in a historical movie the best, but they were my least favorite scenes in “Darkest Hour.” Anyone who has seen “Prime Minister’s Questions” on CSPAN has seen contemporary versions of these scenes hundreds of times. And when Oldman’s Churchill tries to out-orate the opposition, he tends to bellow. (If Oldman does win the Academy Award, it will undoubtedly be the loudest performance ever to win the Oscar.)
Much much better are his quieter scenes with the women of “Darkest Hour.” The audience’s entry point to the world of Churchill is his new secretary Elizabeth Layton (“Downton Abbey’s” Lily James), who, while initially intimidated by this bulldog’s bark, knows just what the irascible Prime Minister needs. Better yet is Kristin Scott Thomas as Winnie’s wife Clementine, who is the only person who can call him on his crap, and he’ll take it. These are the scenes where the latex and prosthetics seem to disappear and we can see the real Gary Oldman relating person-to-person. Kristin Scott Thomas is so good, in fact, that if she just had a few more scenes, we could have been talking about Oscar for her as well.
Joe Wright has a great track record as a director (“Atonement,” “Pride & Prejudice”), but I suspect that he knows that the screenplay by Anthony McCarten covers familiar ground, so he tries to jazz it up with overhead shots and too dramatic lighting to punch up the story, none of it necessary.
There is much to like in “Darkest Hour,” and it will undoubtedly do well when nomination time comes around. But, bottom line, this movie is just Oscar bait through and through. You’d be much better off spending your movie money on more worthy contenders such as “Dunkirk,” “Lady Bird,” “The Shape of Water” and “Three Billboards.” Trust me.
GRADE: B
