WRITTEN BY JOSEPH TRONICEK
Films are like a beating heart that is constantly trying to die. They start out hammering powerfully, and are at constant risk of slowing down. Sometimes they’re already dead when the screenplay is approved, but most of the time making sure that this doesn’t happen is the responsibility of the crew, actors, and director, and director Joe Wright has never lost a patient. Wright over the course of his career seems to have made it his personal creative need to take all that he has learned about from other filmmakers, and evolve them to his needs. Pride and Prejudice, and Atonement are in just the right vein of Shakespearean melodrama of directors such as Laurence Olivier and David Lean, while Hanna was greatly elevated by a sense of Tarkovsky's natural formalism. That might be an oxymoron but if you know your film you know what I mean. Much like in projects like these, Darkest Hour works because its director has taken the script and applied all of his knowledge of past film, style, and craft to the material, and it just can’t help but to work. The director he’s coping off of to amazing ends this time: Frank Capra. Films like Mr. Smith goes to Washington, and It's a Wonderful Life permeate the films entire production. Wright takes this knowledge, and applies it accordingly. Amazing character actors like Gary Oldman, Ben Mendelsohn, Lily James, and Kristin Scott Thomas are beautifully composed in scenes that all seem to isolate yet reveal their deepest truths, surrounded by lighting that is high contrast yet strikingly natural. The camera slowly zooms while characters are given monologues thankfully not permeated by music, trust me there’s a moment on a subway that doesn’t drop an inspiring beat and we are so much better for it. This is big, intense, broad strokes filmmaking, and it all works like a beautiful machine. It’s quite an experience to watch it work so perfectly. That doesn’t mean that the film is perfect in all means. The screenplay is one of those that really isn’t very good, and running at such a high intense pace for most of the film makes the moments where is slows down really stand out. The second act contains most of these, containing maybe one two many shots of the prime minister contemplating how screwed he is. Also as mentioned before it seems as if the team would just let the musical score be quiet during some of the bigger moments we would have had a film that felt completely different than something like The King's Speech, which this definitely is not, and would have made for a much richer experience. Overall, Darkest Hour is just one of those movies where everybody shows up, does their job, and the filmmaker has a complete understanding for how the mechanism of film works. It is both similar and different than any of the prestige pictures that you will see this year, and is probably the best example of what cinema as a craft work can be. P.S. Yes Gary Oldman deserves the best actor oscar. I give Darkest Hour a 7 out of 10.
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December 2017
CategoriesAuthorHello welcome to FilmAnalyst. My name is Stephen Tronicek, and I really like movies. This is a way to get my opinions out to people. Thank you for visiting. |