With concise summary accompanying a black-and-white footage, Joe Wright began narrating his historical biopic surrounding the Greatest Briton of all time, Winston Churchill!
The House of Parliament was in chaos. German army has neared to seize Britain. The country was in need of new Prime Minister as the incumbent was deemed unfit. At this eleventh, tightest, darkest brink of war hour, Winston Churchill was elected to run the office. As the storyline progressed, we discovered bits and pieces of information about this character. He's not a person without home problems. He's keen for the offering of position. He's always wanted this chance of ruling when he was younger. We witness his lack of energy and varying moods based on the different hats he wore in a day. But most of all, it's the intolerable attitude that sent off everyone resenting this man. He lacked interpersonal skills. No one within his own party was willing to agree on his terms and policies, due to the previous Gallipoli campaign blunder. Thus, he started off this bureaucracy journey with heavy disadvantages piled up against.
Gary Oldman gave one of the best performances in his career, and probably the best for the year 2017 as well! He was unrecognizable! If the actor's name wasn't included in the credits, we wouldn't have known he was in the film! From Churchill's mannerism, speech, subtle sense of humor, sarcasm, walking pattern, mumblings, wit and replies, he has mastered it all! And oh God, the makeup! There's no way one would be able to figure out where Gary Oldman ended and the prosthetics began! Just look at the remarkably recreated double chin and rear neck fat!
Technically, the motion picture has a lot of outstanding qualities about it. For one, the settings and production design was immaculate! Evocative picturizations of food and drinks popped the colors! Hand perspective and overhead landscape shots were jaw-dropping! Red light illuminating Churchill's visage and plane crafts wiping across the letterbox format were powerful! Valerio Bonelli's film editing was top class! Seamlessly merging face dirt of a corpse transiting from a bird-eye-view warscape was brilliant! Date carousel technique was nice, although inherently it carried no meaning or deadlines per say.
Speaking of editing, a fair amount of scenes appearing in the first half that caused the plot revolved slowly, could have had the head and tail chopped off. We're talking about nonevents like taking the elevator or walking across the hallway when nothing of real significance was happening. It was beautifully edited, but again, nothing of real significance was happening. Also, one can't help but wish Christopher Nolan's Dunkirk to be cut into the feature as soon as Dynamo operation was initiated just for fun. LOL!
Writing wise, the dialogues were good. Certain episodes had effective visual conveyance, such as the handkerchief-induced propagating reaction. To sift through a boring speech text from A to Z, screenwriter Anthony McCarten managed to intercut it within different venues to not bore us out of our minds. Via natural conversations, we sporadically learnt backstories about Churchill without conscious realization. For a film that dealt with war and loss, it wasn't immensely dark. V sign learning scenes among others, aided in lightening the mood.
It was at the edge of the first hour that the film became much more intriguing! Pressures squeezed the circumstances tighter! There's only 1 or 2 days left to save the army stuck in Dunkirk. Calais' gone! Arguments became heated between Churchill and Halifax (Stephen Dillane)! Overall, the picture became clearer and we knew things were dead serious now! The close-up segment where the Prime Minister received mockery from President Franklin in an immensely desperate time informed us how deep he's in the shit.
Churchill may have been holding on to a lie he believed. Peace maybe, was indeed required rather than going for war. He could see how his actions have affected the commoners through Lily James' typewriter character. But, as soon as he received the King's approval and had a truly touching conversation with the general public in a train, his mind was set forth to go ahead with his plan and to never surrender or evade like cowards for the love of Britain! A clear mention of not all their army members have been expended in Dunkirk should have been highlighted in the movie, in order to prevent the decision made by this persona seemed counter-intuitive at the end.