Despite the title, "Churchill" is not a comprehensive biopic of the British wartime leader. It concentrates upon a very brief, limited period in his career, the few days leading up to the D-Day landings in June 1944. Moreover, its take on these events is an astonishing, almost incredible one. It alleges that Winston Churchill, haunted by memories of the bloody Gallipoli landings in Turkey during the First World War, became convinced that D-Day would be a disastrous failure and desperately, but unsuccessfully, tried to persuade Eisenhower, Montgomery and other Allied generals to cancel the plan. He argued instead that the Allies should concentrate about on their offensive in Italy and fight a multi-front war by launching new operations in Norway, the Balkans and the Bordeaux area of western France. When overruled, Churchill insists that he should sail in person on board one of the ships accompanying the invasion fleet, and only abandons this idea when ordered to do so by King George VI.
Needless to say, this line has been criticised by historians and biographers as historically inaccurate. The decision to land in Normandy in the summer of 1944 had been taken at the highest political level long before; it Churchill had wanted to challenge it he would have needed to raise his objections at a much earlier stage with Roosevelt rather than Eisenhower. (And possibly with Stalin as well). The film-makers do not seem to appreciate what an enormous political storm would have been raised had the British Prime Minister attempted to cancel, at the very last minute, the greatest Allied offensive of the war.
Despite this criticism, I have given the film a relatively high mark because of the quality of some of the acting involved, although not all the performances are equally convincing. Julian Wadham as Monty and Richard Durden as Jan Smuts are both instantly recognisable, but the same cannot be said of John Slattery as Eisenhower or James Purefoy as the King, as neither actor looks anything like the man he is supposedly portraying. Miranda Richardson, however, is excellent as Churchill's wife Clementine, the one person with the courage to speak common sense to the great leader. In looks, as well as in the forthright, no-nonsense style of her acting, Richardson reminded me of Judi Dench, or at least of Dame Judi as she was twenty years ago.
The best performance, however, comes from Brian Cox as the great man himself. Cox, admittedly, does not bear much physical resemblance to Churchill, although the make-up people have done a good job in this respect, but he has clearly studied his subject in depth and mastered his voice and mannerisms well enough to enable him to give a fine impersonation and to deliver his speeches with an authentically Churchillian ring. The storyline may be historically doubtful, but in psychological terms Cox's portrayal of an elderly wartime leader exhausted by his gargantuan efforts and suffering under the burden of self-doubt (and possibly also of guilt over his own part in the Gallipoli affair) is strikingly convincing. It is hardly surprising that the critics, even when they were less than enthusiastic about the film as a whole, singled him out for praise. "Rolling Stone" called his performance "a master class in acting" and "Time Out" said he was "rudely magnificent". My own verdict would be similar; Cox lifts what would otherwise be an indifferent movie into the category of something well worth watching. 7/10
Needless to say, this line has been criticised by historians and biographers as historically inaccurate. The decision to land in Normandy in the summer of 1944 had been taken at the highest political level long before; it Churchill had wanted to challenge it he would have needed to raise his objections at a much earlier stage with Roosevelt rather than Eisenhower. (And possibly with Stalin as well). The film-makers do not seem to appreciate what an enormous political storm would have been raised had the British Prime Minister attempted to cancel, at the very last minute, the greatest Allied offensive of the war.
Despite this criticism, I have given the film a relatively high mark because of the quality of some of the acting involved, although not all the performances are equally convincing. Julian Wadham as Monty and Richard Durden as Jan Smuts are both instantly recognisable, but the same cannot be said of John Slattery as Eisenhower or James Purefoy as the King, as neither actor looks anything like the man he is supposedly portraying. Miranda Richardson, however, is excellent as Churchill's wife Clementine, the one person with the courage to speak common sense to the great leader. In looks, as well as in the forthright, no-nonsense style of her acting, Richardson reminded me of Judi Dench, or at least of Dame Judi as she was twenty years ago.
The best performance, however, comes from Brian Cox as the great man himself. Cox, admittedly, does not bear much physical resemblance to Churchill, although the make-up people have done a good job in this respect, but he has clearly studied his subject in depth and mastered his voice and mannerisms well enough to enable him to give a fine impersonation and to deliver his speeches with an authentically Churchillian ring. The storyline may be historically doubtful, but in psychological terms Cox's portrayal of an elderly wartime leader exhausted by his gargantuan efforts and suffering under the burden of self-doubt (and possibly also of guilt over his own part in the Gallipoli affair) is strikingly convincing. It is hardly surprising that the critics, even when they were less than enthusiastic about the film as a whole, singled him out for praise. "Rolling Stone" called his performance "a master class in acting" and "Time Out" said he was "rudely magnificent". My own verdict would be similar; Cox lifts what would otherwise be an indifferent movie into the category of something well worth watching. 7/10