November Film Club

Generally, for the month of November, I like to choose a war film in honor of Veteran's day. So, for our next film club, I've decided to show Joe Wright's excellent Darkest Hour.

Darkest Hour is a 2017 war drama film directed by Joe Wright and written by Anthony McCarten. The film is an account of Winston Churchill's early days as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom during the Second World War and the May 1940 War Cabinet Crisis, depicting his refusal to seek a peace treaty with Nazi Germany amid their advance into Western Europe. It stars Gary Oldman as Churchill, alongside Kristin Scott Thomas as Clementine Churchill, Lily James as Elizabeth Layton, Stephen Dillane as Viscount Halifax, Ronald Pickup as Neville Chamberlain, and Ben Mendelsohn as King George VI. The title refers to a phrase describing the early days of the war, which has been widely attributed to Churchill.

The film currently holds a fresh rating of 84% on Rotten Tomatoes, and Godfrey Cheshire, writing for Rogerebert.com, gave the film 4/4 stars saying this in his review, "I've been trying to think when there was a historical drama I found as electrifying as Joe Wright's "Darkest Hour". The Winston Churchill we see here is no cartoon hero or plaster saint. Wright's film notes the dark stain on the leader's public career that the battle of Gallipoli in World War I represented, but doesn't make it a psychological millstone. "Darkest Hour" likewise frequently shows us its protagonist from the viewpoints of his acerbic though supportive wife, Clemmie, and his young, endlessly put-upon secretary, Elizabeth. Yet the freshness of this film's portrayal begins with the dramatic sharpness and historical intelligence of Anthony McCarten's script, which gives us a Churchill who is drawn into dynamic action by the looming shadow of Hitler's evil."

We will be meeting Thursday, Nov. 30 at 5:30pm.

Here's the trailer:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LtJ60u7SUSw

Hope to see you there!