Dark Times Movie Review (2017)

Winston Churchill, a man of great passions, apparently loved magnitude in everything and often went to extremes. His words were quoted, his speeches changed the world, and his triumphs could only be matched by his crushing defeats.

Churchill became a legend during his lifetime (and, it seems, will remain a legend as long as European civilization exists), and he could see his first film incarnations with his own eyes (although it is not known whether he did it and, moreover, how he felt about it).

The last two years can be considered record-breaking in this regard - the characteristic figure of the British Prime Minister, never parting with a cigar, during this time appeared on the screen at least three times. "Golden Globe" noted John Lithgow for his performance as Churchill in the TV hit "The Crown", in the same year his harvest of awards collected Gary Oldman.

In 1940, Britain is on the brink of a monumental catastrophe: as they watch Nazi troops conquer country after country, English parliamentarians realize that it's only a matter of time before their nation is next.

In the eternal parliamentary confrontation between the government and the opposition, one can find only one common thought: "Something must be done", and only one compromise figure for that - the old grump Winston Churchill. How did this extravagant fat man come to be Prime Minister? God knows - but it was hardly without "God save the King".

And now a 65-year-old grumpy aristocrat with a cigar in his hand has only days to decide the fate of Britain in these dark times: cowardly to give in to pressure and try, negotiating with the enemy, to bargain for the illusion of peace, or, suffering from grief and trials, not to surrender in the face of tyranny.

The posters for "Dark Times" read "Gary Oldman is Winston Churchill," and that's certainly a marketing ploy, but nowhere near as bold as it could have been. What we have before us is an impressive, virtuoso example of an actor's transformation and a true Gary Oldman benefit.

It's not that we didn't know he was a first-rate, Shakespeare-hardened British actor who has been and continues to be admired for decades not only by audiences but also by his fellow filmmakers and film critics.

However, it takes a lot of imagination and courage to portray him as Churchill. But it is no coincidence that Oldman is called a chameleon actor - and it is no coincidence that he, in addition to this, during the filming spent more than 200 hours in the hands of makeup artists who completely changed his figure and face.

In conditions where make-up is so "that his own mother did not recognize", there is a risk that the actor will hide behind this screen of overlays, deciding that this will be enough to reincarnate. Here was another difficulty: not to fall into buffoonery and banal overplaying, and the fact that this did not happen - a huge example of talent and good taste.

The script itself avoids attempts to canonize Churchill or, on the contrary, to attribute to him a background of "scandals, intrigues, investigations" - you must agree that the risk of the presence of both the former and the latter was quite real. No less good taste was needed to tell the story in the right tone: not as an agitation, without excessive pathos (but there is no way without pathos here), seriously, but without cheap melodramatism or false dramatic intensity.

The movie "Dark Times" was a dream project of screenwriter Anthony McCarten, and was made possible by the success of "The Theory of Everything," his previous work to which he devoted many years. After the film about the love story of the famous scientist Steven Hawking and his first wife, Jane, earned five Oscar nominations, Working Title did not hesitate to launch McCarten's next project, which promised to create a new portrait of Churchill, showing not only the famous strengths of the prime minister, but also his doubts, dark thoughts and fear of failure.

"Dark Times" marked Joe Wright's return to the roots of his directing career: drama. But despite its primary genre, "Dark Times" is at times touching, at other times almost laugh-out-loud hilarious.

To a certain extent, you can learn history from them: you can't remember who else looked so much like King Heorgue VI as Ben Mendelsohn, or where else so much has been said about Churchill's role in the Battle of Gallipoli in World War I, or, for that matter, about the "flip side" of Dunkirk's Operation Dynamo (thankfully, it's been on the radar lately thanks to Christopher Nolan - and that's certainly another good thing for the movie).

But Dark Times perfectly captures the feeling of making history "with blood, toil, tears and sweat," as Churchill put it when he first became Prime Minister. At that time, of course, none of this was history for him yet - and therein lies a much-needed reminder of what becomes history before it becomes past.

That in fact, anyone can find themselves in a situation where they are making history here and now. He will not have a textbook at hand to look in and find out what is right and what is wrong, what will be the consequences of these events, and what will be said about all this in the future, and whether your descendants will understand you correctly.

Winston Churchill was lucky in this regard. And while it's unknown how he would have perceived "Dark Times," his quote "I am easily satisfied with the very best" - "I am easily satisfied with the very best" - is no accident here. "Very best" is about Gary Oldman reincarnated as Churchill.