If you have not paid $2 at Red Box to
rent Darkest Hour, go do it now. Here's why: Miss Layton (Prime
Minister Churchill's typist) creates a 10,000 volt electrified
emotion you need to experience in this story, a documentary
revelation tangential to World War 2; an inner feeling you've
encountered genuine compassion. It's about guessing and knowing.
There are no battlefield scenes, there
are no tank assaults, no artillery bombardments. There is only one
war strategy, and Winston Churchill pondered, developed, and
delivered his strategy for victory by meditating, listening, and
injecting his own historical recollections of war's reality.
Churchill proved something to his wife, George VI, Parliament, FDR,
Miss Layton, and the little girl on underground subway train. It was
about giving up. It was about what happens when you give up to a
murderer who has no conception of the most powerful, ultimate force
in the universe, but he's sure it's him.
Darkest Hour enumerates uncountable
examples of Churchill's brilliance, rhetoric and commandments that
all seemed to come into his mind inexplicably. Even Winston himself
didn't know their origin. That's your challenge...where did his inner
inspirations come from? I'm sure those inspirations came from a
source too complex for humans to conceive. Yet, the screenwriter told
the secret of saving Western civilization from the Huns without
disclosing the corner stone of Churchill's monument to victory.
I'm going with Miss Layton and the
little girl on the underground subway, whose hands God held gently
and firmly.
Gary Oldman's acting ability is of the
highest caliber. Anthony McCarten (writer) gets the gold scepter of
the storyteller's art. This is a great film production.
1 comment:
"Darkest Hour" is a rare cinematic treat that reverts to the 1930's through 1950's era of movies that depended on acting and dialog to captivate and entertain. No computerized special effects wizardly to compensate for lack of an intelligent script and acting. The Best Actor Oscar was certainly well-deserved and the viewer was drawn in to the movie as if he actually was there and experiencing the drama of World War II. We remember that in 1940, the United States had not yet joined their European allies in pushing back Hitler. The desperation and sense of impending doom was literally dripping from Churchill as he swallowed his pride and begged President Roosevelt for assistance in saving Europe and Western Civilization from the Nazi hoards about to invade his island nation. At that time, the pacifists in Great Britain's Parliament wanted to negotiate a peace with Hitler and only the genius of Churchill's oratory would save the nation from becoming a Nazi puppet nation. The like-minded pacifists in the United States wanted to remain neutral also and FDR was not to realize the Axil Powers were a global threat until Pearl Harbor.
The "Greatest Generation" must include Churchill (whose mother was an American citizen) and the fate of the world largely depended on this one man who we must now acknowledge was guided by the Hand of God. If we learn nothing else, war is hell but the only way to defeat evil is by destroying evil.
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