BEFORE: BRITFEST Day 6 has brought me to one of the most important Britons of the 20th century, Winston Churchill. There were two competing films about him released in 2017, so this is part 1 of 2, part 2 will follow in a couple of days. Unfortunately, the linking is forcing me to watch them in reverse chronological order, I'll just have to take that into account. This film is set in June, 1944, just a few days before D-Day. And I'm about two months late in finally getting to this one, as the 75th anniversary of the event took place back in June - again, I'm doing what I can for the war effort, and some concessions have to be made.
Jonathan Aris carries over from "Bright Star".
THE PLOT: 96 hours before the World War II invasion of Normandy, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill struggles with his severe reservations toward Operation Overlord and his increasingly marginalized role in the war effort.
AFTER: I'm going to hold off making any major conclusions about Churchill until after I've seen both films - again, it will just be a few days. The portrayal of him here by Brian Cox (who bears a great resemblance to Churchill, with no fancy prosthetics or make-up needed, all Cox had to do was gain some weight and shave his head) seems mostly accurate, if perhaps a little bit like a caricature. But that's what people remember about him, his appearance, a large (but short), jowly man who smoked cigars and wore a hat and spoke with purpose. The portrayal here is also somewhat screamy, but who's to say he didn't get angry before D-Day, or act fed up because the war had been dragging on so long? Now along come these crazy youngster whipper-snapper generals who think they know everything, when they didn't even fight in the Great War, so how could they have learned anything from it?
I'm less sold on the casting of John Slattery as Dwight Eisenhower - in contrast with Cox as Churchill, I don't think he looks like Ike at all. Was this really the closest bit of casting they could do? Was J.K. Simmons not available? On top of that, Slattery comes with an association with characters he played in "Mad Men" and the "Avengers" films, that of a spoiled sort of rich guy, who doesn't act like he wants to put in the hard work on something, and that's just not Eisenhower, from what I've learned.
But I'm not sure what purpose it serves to show us that Churchill was apprehensive about the D-Day invasion, even if it's true. It HAPPENED, so why show us that Churchill was trying to second-guess the plan, or come up with a better one? Frankly, I'd be a bit more worried about a world leader who WASN'T apprehensive right before a big invasion like that, one that could turn the tide in a global conflict. Plus, it's sending thousands of men, many of your own citizens, people who trust you as a leader, knowing that some of them are not going to survive. Why wouldn't he have at least a little doubt?
Hindsight is always 20/20, of course - Churchill wanted to create a phony invasion in the Aegean Sea, before the real invasion in France. He had other changes he wanted to make to the plan, also, based on his experiences in World War I. But Eisenhower (according to this film, anyway) reminded him that this was not World War I, and there were innovations in warfare since then, like air support, that Churchill seemed to not take into account. Still, Brian Cox supposedly ran Churchill's alleged plans by some of today's military experts, who agreed that his plans could have shortened the war by six months. But then again, other Churchill experts say that this film didn't depict him accurately at all, so I suppose it's all a wash, a bunch of moot points.
Still, high marks for appearance and acting, if not for historical accuracy. Stay tuned in three days for the other Churchill film, "Darkest Hour".
Also starring Brian Cox (last seen in "Super Troopers 2"), Miranda Richardson (last seen in "Stronger"), John Slattery (last seen in "Avengers: Endgame"), Julian Wadham (last seen in "The Iron Lady"), Richard Durden (last seen in "Oliver Twist"), Ella Purnell (last seen in "Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children"), Danny Webb (last seen in "Criminal"), George Anton (last seen in "K-19: The Widowmaker"), Steven Cree (last seen in "Maleficent"), James Purefoy (last seen in "John Carter"), Peter Ormond, Angela Costello, Kevin Findlay, Miro Teplitzky.
RATING: 5 out of 10 weather reports
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