Joe Wright
Darkest Hour

...then the gallant Horatius spoke,
the gatekeeper:
“For every man on this Earth,
death comes soon or late.
And how can a man die better
than facing dangerous risks
for the ashes of his fathers
and the temples of his gods?”

Churchill, in the London Underground, recites an epic speech taken from the Lays of Ancient Rome by Thomas Babington Macaulay.

Creating order from chaos, tales can captivate and entertain more than true stories, sometimes managing to penetrate the most intimate recesses of the human soul or, as in this case, managing to move by presenting different personalities, striving to navigate the challenges of life.

In fact, in life, events follow one another and flow by alternating with each other, overlap, and juxtapose; when one event has yet to come to an end, another begins and brings others along with it, thus actions, people, and places mix and tangle up to form an almost inextricable plot. An author intervenes arbitrarily in this plot, identifying a logic, choosing which facts to correlate with each other, and trying to make sense of it all.

Making it clear that it's about this, that is, myth, I liked The Darkest Hour. It represents some events that happened among the high circles of the English nation in May 1940, in a narrative that uses many historical sources, deliberately omits others, and finally includes purely fictional episodes.

Introducing us to the story is the description of the perilous situation: on May 9, Hitler has already conquered part of Norway and Poland, the Netherlands and Belgium from which he prepares to attack France; consequently, in the following days, the British Parliament dismisses Neville Chamberlain, considered inadequate to face this new situation as the main proponent, along with Halifax, of the policy of appeasement, or accommodation towards German expansionist policy to prevent a new war.

With Chamberlain's resignation, the majority would not like Churchill as a substitute, neither the House of Lords, nor does the king like the idea of receiving him. Foreign Minister Halifax would be the best solution for them.

However, the only politician who can be supported even by the opposition is the old Churchill, so, albeit reluctantly, the king calls him to the palace.

With the presentation of its absolute protagonist, the story gets into full swing.

A hearty eater, heavy drinker, and constant smoker, his face is already famous: a round baby face with a cigar in his mouth and round glasses on the tip of his nose. Extremely demanding and with sharp sarcasm, if you are not his friend, he instills apprehension and awe; with rivals, collaborators, and subordinates he is brusque and cryptic, domineering and rude.

Absent in parliament during the crisis, we know Churchill in his dark room covered with wallpaper, in a masterful setting; there is something frayed here and there, also due to the fact that the room appears in disarray, crammed with books and furniture, including the bed, in which Churchill has lavish breakfasts soaked in whiskey while working diligently.

He dictates and gives orders, gruff and irate while working, but in the family, he rests, listens, is calm, and kind.

Ultimately, he is hated at home, even by the king and in his own party. Furthermore, the faithful ally Roosevelt has his hands tied by American isolationist acts.

In this presentation, everything is set for what seems to be a titanic challenge: alone, he must face the enemy who has taken out almost all allies on the continent, where British military garrisons have been reduced to defending two coastal cities: Calais and Dunkirk.

If I had found myself in a similar situation and realized what was happening, I probably would have turned pale. Breathing would have become difficult for minutes, hours, days, and weeks: I would have felt suffocated. A weight between my stomach and back would never have left me.

Probably Churchill had these feelings too, for a while.

However, in some, pain turns into a strong desire to fight, while in others it settles and remains there to live with them.

If I might belong to the second group, Churchill definitely belonged to the first, and piece by piece he manages to react to the darkest hour of his nation.

In this phase of the film, the two Churchills, the shrewd and formidable politician, and the calm and kind family man, unite in the person of the president. England with its King and the citizens of the London Underground become Churchill's second family.

These minutes are both exhilarating, because they are well-written and acted masterfully (one gets emotional listening to Churchill's famous speeches), and infused with rhetoric that shows a lone man managing to conquer piece by piece the whole nation and unite it around him (and his king).
So, in the end, this remains a good movie to watch to get excited along with the protagonists of a crucial turning point in 20th-century European history; however, probably, history should be sought elsewhere, because Chamberlain and Churchill are respectively more than a weak man and a tenacious and courageous hero. Since, after all, we are adults, and roles fit well in fairy tales but are constraining in reality.