With the intermittent support of Chamberlain, Halifax harries Churchill in Cabinet and rejects the new prime minister’s policy of defiance. Join us online (for free!) or live in London, 7-9 October 2021 View EventĬhurchill’s chief rival for the premiership, and the preferred candidate of most, was the Foreign Secretary, Lord Halifax (Stephen Dillane), who forcefully advocates negotiation with Hitler through Italian intermediaries. The coincidental and fateful invasion of Western Europe by Hitler’s forces on the very day of Churchill’s appointment sets up the dilemma that dominates the rest of the film-whether to resist the Nazi tide or to negotiate with “that man.” It opens with the fall of Neville Chamberlain (Ronald Pickup) and accurately depicts the resistance on the part of many Tories to the elevation of Churchill. They have instead depicted him in the political wilderness (Richard Burton, Robert Hardy, Albert Finney), in old age (John Lithgow), or in infirmity (Michael Gambon). Recently, only Brendan Gleeson has portrayed Churchill the warlord-but in a rushed storyline that condensed long years of war into less than two hours.ĭarkest Hour devotes two full hours just to Churchill’s first month as prime minister, a wise dramatic choice that heightens the excitement of the film. Most portrayals of Churchill have been in television dramas, and oddly, most of those have avoided the most dramatic chapter of his remarkable life: his earliest days as prime minister. There is a lazy journalistic trope that suggests that films about Winston Churchill are a common occurrence, but Darkest Hour, directed by Joe Wright and starring Gary Oldman as Churchill, is the first major cinematic release about the great man since 1972’s Young Winston (with the regrettable exception of the dreadful Churchill, which defaced a tiny number of screens earlier this year before disappearing without a trace). Darkest Hour released by Focus Features, directed by Joe Wright and starring Gary Oldman and Kristin Scott Thomas.
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