* The last that I expect to see. I just don't think I can muster any interest in Phantom Thread, so it seems this will be the first time in several years that I haven't seen all the Best Picture contenders.
The movie I checked off is Darkest Hour. It's a tale of Winston Churchill, set in the first few weeks after he became Prime Minister. Primarily, it's coming at the same story as another of this year's Best Picture nominees, Dunkirk. But where that movie is all action, immediacy, and raw thrills, Darkest Hour is all politics, maneuvering, and intellectual gamesmanship. The two really could be seen as companion pieces to one another. But if I'm going to pick only one, it would be Dunkirk.
Continuing the comparison to other Best Picture nominees this year, Darkest Hour has a similar flaw as another film, The Post. Both films recognize the need for a character arc to focus the drama and frame the narrative, but don't do a good job of presenting one beyond chronicling the raw historical facts. Here, the arc is the question of how Churchill learns to trust his own judgment, and how to motivate others to follow his leadership. (Actually, this is much the same journey as that of Meryl Streep's character in The Post, albeit on a different scale.)
Here, we do at least see scenes that seem to depict Churchill learning and growing. (A particularly "packaged" one near the end of the movie has him interacting with common Londoners to take in their opinions.) But the movie doesn't do a great job of making you believe that other minds are being changed. A key relationship in the movie, for example, is that between Churchill and King George VI (the focus of a past Oscar movie, The King's Speech). It's a rather adversarial relationship throughout the bulk of the film... until the king has a sudden change of heart that seems completely unmotivated by anything we've seen dramatized.
If anything, it's possible the film will make you like Winston Churchill less. This is a warts-and-all portrayal that presents the man as ill-tempered, stubborn, and insensitive. He also embodies much of what is hated in politicians: lying straight to a person's face, telling them what they want to hear, and then immediately turning around and doing the opposite. Historically, of course, Churchill was correct here, and the context does matter a great deal in this case. The enemy he's opposing, after all, is Hitler. And yet there's a quiet background question this movie could be seen as asking: is Churchill only great because we compare him to Hitler?
The truth is, no one is credibly looking at this movie to have any chance of winning Best Picture. All the talk is about actor Gary Oldman, who is thought to be a shoo-in to win Best Actor for playing Churchill. The issue of whether it's okay to even like Gary Oldman these days is a bit tricky, as stories of spousal abuse have been floating around for a time, and are being re-examined by many in this overdue age of #MeToo. The allegations don't seem to be hurting his award chances; I couldn't say whether that's because of where domestic abuse falls on a scale in people's minds, whether an interview given by one of Oldman's ex-wives praising his acting talent has had a mitigating effect, or something else. Suffice it to say, if none of that were in the mix, it would probably be safe to say that few other actors without an Oscar would be more deserving than Gary Oldman.
When he does win, it's going to be one of those "he's due" awards, more than for exceptional work here. Certainly, it's impressive how Oldman vanishes into this role. There's also something to be said for a more restrained performance like this movie calls for. Still, it would be ludicrous to claim that Oldman has never been better than this. Or, to come at it from another angle, I think if another actor somehow given this exact performance, without the need for prosthetic makeup, and without decades of other excellent work having been overlooked by the Academy, that actor would not be nominated for this.
Indeed, I'm not even convinced Gary Oldman gives the best performance in this movie. Kristin Scott Thomas plays Winston's long-suffering wife Clementine Churchill, and is truly wonderful. Her work is just as finely calibrated as anything else here, and yet still manages to engender more empathy, still manages to sneak a few subtle emotional jabs in under your guard. She does it with far less screen time, too. If I were handing out an award for this movie, it would go to her.
Still, I'm not sure I'd hand out any awards for this movie. There are great moments here and there, but the whole is a bit too slow, a bit too matter-of-fact, a bit too quiet, to elicit from me a very enthusiastic response. But as I also don't think it would be fair to call it a "bad" movie, I'd grade it on just the right side of a B-.
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