Les Heures sombres

Although its been shown to have been largely fictionalized, the gist of the story is accurate. Oldman gives an incredible performance, and not as some old bellowing windbag either. After seeing this, one might recommend reading churchill's own 6 volume set on the subject, but to save time, the first volume, The Gathering Storm, may provide one with some historical pretext for this monumental event in western history-Churchill standing up to a madman, and this saving not just britain, but all good men everywhere. Oldman, you da man!

At this point, "Darkest Hour" has an overall rating of 5.3. I do not understand this at all, but the film has not actually been released yet and has only been seen in film festivals. I assume the overall score will increase considerably--especially since the two reviews for it were quite positive.

Now I must point out that I am a retired history teacher and I consider Winston Churchill to be perhaps the greatest politician of the century. So, I clearly have a bias and predisposition towards liking the movie...especially if it's done well. Is it a crowd pleaser? Maybe not, as the average movie-goer (especially teens) might not enjoy this or care a lick about the film.

The story covers only a portion of the month of May, 1940...just before the fall of France during WWII. Prime Minster Chamberlain is about to be tossed out of office, as his appeasement strategy with Hitler has turned out to be completely stupid. In his place, some hope for Churchill to be the next Prime Minister...though some forces are working to depose him as soon as he comes to power. At the same time, the war is going as badly as it possibly can. Can Churchill survive this? Well, of course...duh, it's HISTORY!

The reasons to see this are two big ones....the film has achieved the look of 1940 beautifully and Gary Oldman provides an Oscar- winning performance in the lead. If he is not at least nominated for this top award, I will be completely shocked...and he really managed (along with ample prosthetics) to LOOK and SOUND like the great man. Great job all around...and a perfect film.

As a film this is quite good; it's not dull, the performances are good, the production design is excellent, the script is a professional piece of work and even Oldman's make-up is not too distracting.

However, something is not right. If most people get their history from movies, this is concerning. It's obvious that actual events occurred with real people and what they did and said but in a movie this gets pasteurized into what smart people believe will be more thrilling, more sympathetic, more emotional. That process necessarily alters things into something that is even anachronistically rendered and therefore not in the record.

This defect occurs frequently in this movie , so it's not history but myth making. A good example is Churchill's dive into the Underground to meet the common person to steel his resolve. Now Churchill had a mixed view of the average voter, and he was a patrician, but even that aside, he did not need to take a Tube train survey to gauge opinion.

This scene is poached from Shakespeare's Henry V where the king goes among his soldiers the night before battle to hear them and take courage from their strength. Steal from the best is a good policy, but it's not history. It's Shakespearean history and that trades effect for accuracy too.

The audience is given this scene to present Churchill as an instrument of democracy; he's acting for what the people want, therefore he's doing the right thing. It's called pandering.

Well, it is just a movie.

I'm sure I am not alone in having seen everything ever filmed about the man.

But this is nothing like I have seen before. He is so funny.

We see his ability to make jokes like never before and there is more here than just dry sarcastic references.

He keeps us in stitches. He must have told 25 jokes.

This film starts in the days when Chamberlain knows he cannot continue as prime minister, alongside the crippling uncertainty of his cabinet meetings, and through to when the entire country, as a result of his speeches, stands firmly behind Churchill as war leader.

What surprised me the most was how large a role the opposition party played in Churchill's rise to power.

Excellent supporting cast from those distinguished actors we have seen in many BBC productions and "Game of Thrones".

Ben Mendelsohn's portrayal of King George VI was stunningly well done.

A real delight at Tiff - too bad no Q&A for my screening.

I cannot remember the last time I was in a movie and I said, gee I wish this movie would keep going because it's just so damn good. I don't really have to say anything more about Oldman beyond what's already been said, that was brilliant Academy Award work. Despite being a literalist on history and not enjoying Hollywood embellishments/contrivances that didn't really happen, I will repeat something I said on another movie (Patton): I am okay where a fictional event is one that could have happened (or maybe happened out of time sequence) where it is used more to show the persona of the character than to establish an historical fact. Notwithstanding this, the subway scene may have been a little much. Strong cast throughout, including the portrayers of King George VI, Chamberlain, Halifax and Churchill's lovely secretary (James). A must see for WW II buffs and appreciators of good cinema everywhere.