Darkest Hour

Darkest Hour

I've talked about biopics on here before, and this is exactly what I consider to be a standard Oscar biopic. It didn't anger me, I didn't think it was bad, but this was an Oscar biopic through and through.

Gary Oldman. This whole movie is about Gary Oldman. Yes, Kristin Scott Thomas and Lily James are both very good, but Gary Oldman. Gary Oldman hasn't won an Oscar before, and the only other time Gary Oldman was nominated was for Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy. Gary Oldman is going to win his Gary Oldman Oscar this year and that can finally stop being a piece of Gary Oldman trivia. He does a great job of appearing natural in all of that crazy makeup, feeling less like a Universal monster and more like an actual human being. Of course he has his big Oscar-y speeches (though playing Winston Churchill is arguably good excuse for this), but it's when he's quiet that his performance truly shines. The scene in the tube is the best part of the movie as far as I'm concerned, and it's entirely because of how natural Oldman plays it. However, if he wins best actor it'll be entirely because of how long he's gone without an Oscar. Day-Lewis, Chalamet, and Kaluuya (I haven't seen Roman J. Israel, Esq. but I'm sure Denzel is great) all gave more powerful performances in their respective films than Oldman. Now to be fair, those actors also had massively brilliant scripts to work with, whereas Oldman had the script for, as stated previously, an Oscar biopic. So he certainly had more of an up(church)hill battle to climb, which makes it more okay that he'll inevitably win.

There's really not much else to talk about. The cinematography is fairly standard, with a couple of bizarre digital shots that didn't really fit in the film, the script is solid but not memorable in any way, and the side performances are all good but ultimately outshone by Oldman. As stated in my equally short Death of Stalin review, I'm not a historian, so I have no idea what's accurate here and what isn't, but from what I've read it sounds like the filmmakers definitely did as much homework as they could.

It's a solid, typical, standard Oscar biopic. It's not bad, it's just not my thing.