If 'Darkest Hour' Doesn't Win an Oscar

Darkest Hour is a spectacular 2018 release starring Gary Oldman (of Harry Potter and Tinker Taylor Soldier Spy fame) and Lily James (of Cinderella and Baby Driver fame) in a movie that depicts with aplomb and respect what was truly a dark time in European History.

SPOILERS AHEAD

The movie focuses in closely on the first month in office of Winston Churchill, who was possibly one of the most disliked men in parliament at the time. Thanks in part to the events portrayed in this movie, he has become a symbol of strength and perseverance in the face of adversity. Gary Oldman does a fantastic job, capturing mannerisms and personality traits with effortlessness. He even captured the "posh old man voice" which we all find so hard to understand. My only criticism of this movie is that it probably would have been a little easier to follow with subtitles.

As a parallel to this, it uses the bright storyline of Lily James, who portrays Winston Churchill's secretary, to add both humour and humanity. She is everything the woman of today looks to, without compromising he expectations of the women of the 50s: she stands up for herself when disrespected, but she is aware that she has reached the highest office as secretary to the prime minister. She is not allowed in the Maps room, and doesn't question it. But throughout all of this, she speaks her mind to this terrifying and incredibly demanding man, through a period that was of great strain to her personally, with the loss of her brother in Calais.

There is no lewd romance in this movie, no cheap humour, no insult to the memory of the great people who sacrificed so much for the life we all have today. It is simply a great movie about the great men and women who came before us.

It is nominated for the following Oscars:

1. Best Picture
2. Best Actor for Gary Oldman
3. Best Cinematography
4. Best Costume Design
5. Best Production Design
6. Best Makeup

A whopping 6 nominations should be a feather in anyone's hat.

However, much as every year, competition is fierce. The Shape of Water has topped all charts with 13 Nominations. 3 Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouriis heart-wrenching and soul-haunting. Call Me By Your Name is the most innocently romantic coming of age story that I have watched in a long time.

So if Gary Oldman doesn't win Best Actor, the Oscars can be forgiven. And if Jaqueline Durran doesn't win Best Costumes, you can't blame the Oscars for being unfair.

But if they do not win Best Makeup I will eat my hat.

Would you think that these two photos were of the same man? No, me neither.

The true dedication of the prosthetics team headed by Kazuhiro Tsuji can only be understood in the abstract sense: every day of shooting the applications of prosthetics and makeup and body suits took 4 hours until Winston Churchill would come alive. At the end of filming every day it would take 2 hours for it to be taken off and Gary Oldman to emerge himself again.

This is not to minimise the hard work put in by the actors, who sometimes filmed 12-hours straight.

But do we remember the last time that prosthetics were applied to meticulously and carefully to bring back to life a figure of historical importance? When the trend currently is to just use Computer Generated Images to pretend that Henry Cavill didn't have a mustache during reshoots, or to resurrect a Princess Leia from the 70s, it is crucial to give these artists the recognition that they deserve.

The Best Makeup nomination is not usually the one that makes the headlines. It is not the one that people stay up all night in weird time zones to watch. We don't know their names or their faces, and we don't pay attention to what they wear on the red carpet. But they deserve our love and respect, because without them we could never get a Churchill as magnificent as that which is on the screen during Darkest Hour.