Attacking London was up there too, and Winston Churchill was the man chosen to help an overmatched England deal with it. Darkest Hour tells the story of his first four weeks in office, when he caught a lot of shit for not choosing to surrender to peace talks.
Churchill was brilliant and quirky. It’s amazing he lived to be 90 years old, considering he smoked 15 cigars each day, and his favorite breakfast was steak, eggs and whiskey. Gary Oldman is unrecognizable playing him. Fat suits have come a LONG way.
I went to a screening of the film at the Director’s Guild last night, followed by a Q&A with the director, Joe Wright. It’s a really terrific period piece, shot beautifully with Wright’s patented, long tracking shots. My dad, a huge World War II buff, would have loved this.
Darkest Hour works well as a companion piece to one of my other favorite films this year: Dunkirk. Both are going to get plenty of award nominations, and if you’re a front-runner like me, see it.
