Mark Steyn pointed out in his review of “Darkest Hour” that it was Churchill who encouraged the British public to fight on, not the other way around. Churchill didn’t need bucking up by the public; the public needed a leader like him.
Actually, I give the writer and director points for this little foray into fantasy. Churchill was being thwarted at every turn by his own party in dealing with Hitler and his gang. The scene showed, if nothing else, that, regardless of what the striped pants boys thought, the average Brit was firmly behind Churchill, and understood the alternatives.
Sort of a parallel to the current situation with President Trump in Washington...
Now, having seen (and barely stayed awake through) "The Compost" this weekend, I agree with those who thought it was a piece of garbage. Around the Bay Area, reviewers have praised the movie and it's "very relevant to today" message of necessary "freedom of the press".
In fact, it was quite relevant to today regarding the press. Especially in the slant of the Lame Stream Media. It was ham-handed in the way that it attempted to lay all of the "crisis" on Nixon. Meanwhile, MacNamara was portrayed as a pinheaded academic who was pure as the driven snow, and LBJ was nothing more than a few throw away lines in the movie.
In fact, MacNamara had commissioned the study that became "The Pentagon Papers" during the Johnson administration, assuming it would be used by historians in about 50 years to "understand" what was happening in Vietnam. And I think LBJ was just as angry about publishing the papers and would have been just as vindictive as Nixon had the news leaked under his watch. Probably more so, if I recall what historians have said about LBJ.
I'll refrain from commenting on the cast and their acting. Meryl Streep was, well, Meryl Streep. Just as clueless as Katherine Graham as she has been in real life with the Weinstein incident. And Tom Hanks wasn't bad, but his portrayal of Ben Bradlee felt very similar to other characters he's played.