THE DARKEST HOUR - Communication Makes it Happen

The final project for my film class at the high school is to find three movies and develop an essential question or theses and answer or argue it based on the students' interpretation of the movies. I tell the kids that they can choose any three movies in the world and I will find a way to connect them. It is my superpower.

My Wednesday movies were easy - LADYBIRD, 3 BILLBOARDS and I, TONYA were all colored in broad strokes by motherhood. Yesterday's movies were THE SHAPE OF WATER and DARKEST HOUR were both conflict movies, both set mid 20th century and both beautifully shot. Seriously, my eyes sent me a thank you note for letting them feast on the cinematography. But the theme that jumped out at me on the drive home was that of communication.

THE DARKEST HOUR is the story of Winston Churchill's first month as prime minister, culminating in the "We shall fight on the beaches" speech to Parliament that basically cemented the stiff upper lips of the population of Britain with regard to fighting the Axis.  The last line of the movie is "He just mobilized the English language and sent it into battle." I think Viscount Halifax said it in the movie, although in real life it is attributed to Edward R. Murrow (and gently plagiarized by JFK when he granted Churchill honorary American citizenship). Either way, it is the crux of the movie and sums up the power of Churchill's words.

The performances are splendid - Kristin Scott Thomas and Lily James are softly supportive as Churchill's wife and secretary. Ronald Pickup and Stephan Dillane are snooty and dismissive (and yet always one step behind) as Chamberlain and Halifax. Ben Mendelsohn plays George IV as conflicted and smart and it took me visiting IMDB 10 seconds ago to realize that he was Danny Rayburn from BLOODLINE. Good grief - he's a chameleon! David Strathairn plays FDR in one short phone conversation. I totally ID-ed him. So proud.

But there is only one *star* in this movie. According to the internet, Churchill is played by Gary Oldman, but I don't see it. That was Winston Churchill up there on the screen. According to Vanity Fair it took 4 hours a day to get Oldman in make-up and fat suit but he acts through the layers and layers of artifice to great effect. I finally forgave him for his carelessness in the Ministry of Magic (Sirious-ly, killed by a doorway? WTF, Black...)

I loved many of Oldman's performances in the past, starting with PRICK UP YOUR EARS (which I described to Alfred Molina when I met him in London - okay, asked for his autograph after a play, still counts! - as "The feel-good movie of the year." Yep, I cracked Alfred Molina up.) and SID AND NANCY, but other than the Harry Potters, he had lately fallen off my radar. But dang, he's still got it.

His performance is the lynchpin upon which the whole thing is constructed, but it is the power of Churchill's mastery of language that, well, saved the world. There is a scene (apocryphal) where he slips out of his car and takes the underground to Westminster and takes the pulse of a carload of Londoners regarding trying to negotiate a peace with Hitler. At one point he begins quoting something (St. Crispin's Day, maybe) and a young working-class man on the train finishes it for him and they exchange a look that says that they are brothers who will fight to the death together.  Yes it was manipulative, and yet - it worked.