This year, Winston Churchill is busier than ever. Award-bait turns from Gary Oldman & John Lithgow (DARKEST HOUR; THE CROWN), a constant, if unseen presence in DUNKIRK, plus this, for the Booby Prize. Woefully unconvincing, it was mercifully lost in the shuffle. Brian Cox blusters his way thru a Winston petrified into political paralysis as a lone, hysterical voice against the Normandy Invasion; unable to see past memories of his WWI fiasco at Gallipoli. All well and good, but his constant hectoring and out of control behavior, held back to some extent by Miranda Richardson’s Clemmie Churchill, offer Cox little variety, he’s all huff & puff (literally), then given a bow for unearned credit. Director Jonathan Teplitzky hardly helps his cause, unable to work around his tight budget (a pre-invasion gathering of soldiers would hardly fill a single boat) and he’s not much help to a cast largely unequal to their famous characters.* Of all the Churchill bio-pics made after Albert Finney opened the floodgates with THE GATHERING STORM/’02, this seems quite the worst.
SCREWY THOUGHT OF THE DAY: *Like John Slattery, who makes no connection to General Eisenhower at all. And he should be a dream of a role to play what with that balding pate & a voice barely half a step away from Clark Gable. Those who recall the elections of ‘52 & ‘56 will know that Adlai Stevenson’s speaking voice was remarkably close to Ronald Colman. Gable & Colman, what a casting coup!
WATCH THIS NOT THAT: As mentioned above, GATHERING STORM is fine (if no better) and should make for neat comparisons with Oldman’s new bio-pic, DARKEST HOUR, covering nearly the same Pre-War events.
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