Grade: D-
I am reminded again of a question that was posed at dinner last weekend. We wondered how actors felt if they won an award for a performance that they didn’t feel was their best, while meanwhile, they did not get recognized for one they were quite proud of. I adore Gary Oldman. He has never won an Oscar, and it’s long overdue. However, he shouldn’t take it personally if he ends up sitting it out this year. He is nominated for his performance as Winston Churchill in Darkest Hour. I regret having used up the adjectives “boring” and “pointless” in a review just a few days ago. With Darkest Hour, this is the most bored I’ve been and the least I’ve cared about a movie in several years. Roman J. Israel Esq was the boring pointless film in question that I saw earlier in the week. That was a hard pill to swallow. Darkest Hour is a suppository. Fittingly, the two most worthwhile lines in the film are spoken in the bathroom. Oldman’s Churchill, early on, says “I’m sealed in the privy, and I can only deal with one [bowel movement] at a time.” He speaks for the audience.
How I hated this movie. It was dull, lifeless, and interminable, even for a historical drama. Oldman, looking like Jim Broadbent and sounding like Droopy, admittedly executes an impressive transformation. It is the kind of performance that is buried in layers of prosthetics, and tends to get awards. I failed to see this as anything other than a movie about how to make a well-known actor unrecognizable. Or maybe a cure for insomnia. It is beyond me how this turned up on the Best Picture list instead of The Greatest Showman, Coco, or my favorite movie of the last year, The Florida Project. My other favorite line: I laughed very hard when Oldman said “I’m coming out in a state of nature,” and then out he emerged from the foggy bathroom, wearing nothing but his wits. Mercifully, we only see his pale plump legs, but I would rather sit and look at Churchill in his full state of nature for 2 hours and 4 minutes than ever see Darkest Hour again.
Grade: D-
Film Reviews by Mark 
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