Darkest Hour (2017)

Jack and I loved this look into the month of May 1940 for England's Prime Minister Winston Churchill, struggling to keep the Nazis out of their "island," as they repeatedly call it. Gary Oldman is stunning in the role, already nominated for awards from the Screen Actors Guild, Critics Choice, and Golden Globes, and is on everyone's short list for an Oscar nod (he was last blogged for the Robocop reboot). Kristin Scott Thomas (most recently in My Old Lady) is patient as his wife Clementine. Lily James (last in Baby Driver) is nice as secretary Miss Layton, and I appreciated Ben Mendelsohn (we saw him in Animal Kingdom, Dark Knight Rises, The Place Beyond the Pines, and Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, though I failed to mention him) as King George VI--Elizabeth's father, with the speech defect. Ronald Pickup (a mischievous geezer in The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel and its predecessor) is also quite good as Neville Chamberlain (John Hurt was supposed to play that part but died before the start of filming). At one point Churchill has a short phone call with President Roosevelt and, after a minute, I recognized David Strathairn's voice.

Apparently this has been a dream project for screenwriter Anthony McCarten (most recently in these pages for The Theory of Everything which earned him an Oscar nomination) and he got to work with director Joe Wright (last blogged for Anna Karenina).

Oh, the makeup! Oldman is transformed with a fat suit weighing half again as much as he does and facial prosthetics that look completely natural. Four people were assigned only to him and I'm not sure whom to credit nor how many hours a day he spent in the chair, but one imdb poster estimates 200 hours over the course of production.

We also loved the cinematography by Bruno Delbonnel (Oscar-nominated for Amélie (2001) and Inside Llewyn Davis (and two others--no wins), he also shot Infamous (2006), Across the Universe (2007), Dark Shadows, and Big Eyes, to name the ones I have seen) with many shots from above--near, far, and zooming.

Production designer Sarah Greenwood, who has been nominated for four Oscars, including Anna Karenina, and her team have again been nominated by their peers at the Art Directors Guild for Best Period Feature Film. for this one

Composer Dario Marianelli (his one Oscar and two other nominations are all for Joe Wright projects--most recently the nominated score for Anna Karenina) works this time with Icelandic pianist Víkingur Ólafsson, who is credited for the soundtrack in the spotify and youtube links but not on imdb. Either link will allow you to stream the entire powerful soundtrack with various commercial breaks.

Rotten Tomatoes' critics and audiences are tied at 84% each. We think it's a bit higher than that and definitely worth seeing on a big screen.