REVIEW: In "Darkest Hour," Gary Oldman Delivers the Performance of his Career

When Gary Oldman was approached by Joe Wright to star as Winston Churchill in “Darkest Hour,” Oldman had one caveat: Kazuhiro Tsuji had to do his makeup.  If you’re not familiar with Gary Oldman, well, you don’t watch many movies, I guess, but at any rate, here’s Oldman, and here’s Oldman as Churchill:

Gary Oldman, left, and Gary Oldman as Winston Churchill, right.

That’s a pretty drastic  difference.  Now if you’ve never watched an episode of SyFy’s “Face/Off,” let me tell you… this is the work of an artist.  Oldman’s entire body had to be transformed with a fat suit, and his whole face had to be done in such a way that it could hold up to close-ups and wouldn’t interfere with Oldman’s performance, but rather enhance it.  The shocking thing is how successful it is.  I can see why Oldman requested Kazuhiro Tsuji.  For a job like that, you need the best, and Tsuji pulled it off with such precision that he must, in fact, be the best. 

So let’s talk about the movie.  I shouldn’t have to say this, but I will anyway, just in case: don’t get your history lessons from movies.  Movies are lousy at teaching history.  Movies are make-believe, and the people who make them get to make stuff up.  They’re good at making stuff up, they enjoy it, and the goal is that we enjoy the stuff they made up.  That’s as true if you’re watching an historical drama as it is if you’re watching a fantasy film.  You know how movies based on books are never the same as the books?  Same principle.  So don’t go into “Darkest Hour” expecting the history to be entirely accurate.  It isn’t.  But that’s not what’s important when we talk about a movie.  What’s important is whether the movie is good.  And in this case, it is.

The movie is set during the early days of Churchill’s Prime Ministry, in 1940, when the usual policy toward Hitler was appeasement, believing that sooner or later he would stop, that he would behave with honor and decency in at least some measure.  Churchill’s predecessor, Neville Chamberlain, believed this, and so did his allies in Parliament.  But Churchill wasn’t having any of that.  Winston Churchill was a man who understood that sometimes it’s necessary to take a stand.  That having an enemy wasn’t as bad as not having a self. 

The film explores Churchill’s struggle; he has Nazis knocking on the door.  He has half of Parliament and much of his own cabinet against him.  King George VI isn’t crazy about him either.  And almost the entire British Expeditionary Force is trapped at Dunkirk, pinned down by Nazis on land and in the air – a mess he inherited.  There are bitter decisions to be made, and it takes a leader with broad shoulders to take on that kind of responsibility, to make those impossible choices.  Oldman plays Churchill as a man who was private conflicted, but publicly confident and self-assured.  I believe that is the burden of every leader. 

A poor leader wears that conflict publicly, creating doubt and uncertainty in those around them, and casting suspicion upon the entire apparatus.  A good leader shows certainty and confidence, even if they don’t feel it; and in so doing raises morale and galvanizes people into action.  Churchill was a man of appetites: cigars, alcohol, food.  He was also a very intelligent man, eloquent and wise, who understood persuasion.  He was theatrical, in just the right amount; he knew how to inspire. 

You might ask what the story is, here, in the film.  The film takes place from Churchill taking the office of Prime Minister, to the successful rescue of the men from Dunkirk and the “We Shall Never Surrender” speech.  What it shows, in that window, is a man everyone is wary of, whose apparent desire to go to war against Germany scares the hell out of Parliament, slowly winning over his detractors, or maneuvering them into corners, and taking control of a difficult situation.  Cleaning up a mess he inherited.  It’s a fine thing to watch if you can handle a quiet drama about political maneuvering.  I found it very powerful.  

All of this works, of course, only if Gary Oldman’s performance, and Kazuhiro Tsuji’s makeup, can deliver.  Oldman is indisputably one of the best actors working today.  He studied footage of Churchill, listened to his voice, looked at his mannerisms, his walk, the expressions on his face, and he tried to soak all of that up and find the man.  In various interviews he talked about how he felt in some sense that he was not only standing in Churchill’s shadow, but in the shadow of every actor who has portrayed him down through the years, from Albert Finney to Brendan Gleeson.  

Oldman’s up for an Academy Award for this performance, and it’s self-evident from the film why he’s the favorite to win.  You forget who it is you’re looking at, you just accept him as Churchill and go along for the ride.  For some, the film may not have the kind of story they like, leaning more heavily on the strength of Oldman’s performance.  But if you appreciate acting for the art that it is, and you want to see a great one at the height of his craft, I recommend Darkest Hour.

STAR WARS: THE LAST JEDI is A New Hope for the Franchise (NON-SPOILER REVIEW)

Daisy Ridley and Mark Hamill star as Rey, and Luke Skywalker in Rian Johnson's "Star Wars: The Last Jedi."

What I disliked so intensely about “The Force Awakens” was that it seemed to miss the point of Star Wars.  It looked like a Star Wars movie, but it struck me as rather soulless and empty, and the abiding feeling I had as Rey held out Anakin’s lightsaber to Grumpy Old Man Luke, and we irised out to the end credits, was, tragically, “meh.” 

I remember shrugging a lot.  I remember writing several articles and various Facebook rants about why they’d gotten it wrong.  So much so that it also sparked some writing from me, on my blog, about the deeper themes in Lucas’s Star Wars trilogies.  JJ Abrams is a Star Wars fan, but he’s the kind of fan I dislike.  He obviously is no fan of the prequels and thus discounts all the wonderful ideas buried beneath the clumsy, stilted storytelling of those films. 

But wait, you say.  I’m supposed to be reviewing “The Last Jedi.”  Well, you’re right.  And the reason I’ve spent my first two paragraphs on setup is so you understand that I’m a hard sell for Disney Star Wars.  Hopefully that adds the necessary weight when I say that I absolutely loved Episode VIII: The Last Jedi. 

It isn’t a perfect film.  Some of the dialogue, particularly in the opening scenes with Domhnall Gleason’s General Hux and his bridge crew, is so tin-eared it would make even George Lucas cringe.  BB-8 is still a cartoon drawing of all the worst things about R2-D2.  But Rian Johnson did what JJ Abrams couldn’t do (and likely was forbidden from doing) with The Force Awakens: he surprises us.
  

Throughout the film’s 155-minute runtime, Johnson makes bold choices and leaves us constantly in fear for the safety of characters young and old.  Things happen that the audience absolutely does not expect.  And through it all, none of these choices ever rings false.  In fact, although Johnson breaks in various ways from what we by now think of as the Star Wars formula, he does so with the full understanding of the weight of those decisions.  Rian Johnson gets Star Wars.  This is a man who has watched all of Lucas’s Star Wars movies and, like me, has found something to appreciate in all of them, even the prequels; likely even Attack of the Clones, with its broken pace and confounding love story. 

Luke Skywalker tells Rey something like, “at the height of their power, the Jedi allowed a Sith Lord to take over the Republic and turn it into an Empire.  That’s their legacy.  Hubris.”  Yeah, Luke Skywalker just explained the prequels to Rey.  Everything about that pleases me.  I’ve written before about one of the broader ideas in the original six films being that the Jedi were not so wonderful, and that Anakin, as the Chosen One to restore balance, had to destroy both the Jedi and the Sith, from within.  Although Luke never says that as such, he does confess that he believes it’s time for the Jedi to end.  A surprise cameo from a beloved character – and I won’t spoil it here – leads to the understanding that failure is the greatest teacher, that the burden of all mentors is to see their students grow beyond them, and that we must let go of the past.  It’s bittersweet, it’s wrenching, and it’s absolutely dead-on. 

I echo the sentiments of my favorite entertainment journalist, Drew McWeeny, when I say that I was ready to concede that Star Wars no longer belongs to my tribe, that it’s somebody else’s now for better or for worse, and that I’d probably never really love anything new that the brand had to offer.  But Rian Johnson and “The Last Jedi” proved me wrong.  I couldn’t be happier to be so mistaken. 

For a more in-depth, SPOILER-FILLED REVIEW and other content from Sean, check out his blog HERE.