The Gathering Storm 2002

This was one of the better renditions of Churchill, making him more human than most. Churchill's extreme confidence even when wrong was well known, but this takes that and best explains it in a scene where he talks about his childhood. I can't remember any other film showing this as thoughtfully. Usually the idea that he believed in some sort of manifest destiny is presented as it centered around him. This film gives a great rendering of a more human view, that he knew he would have to fight something some time, but he was never sure what it was... until Hitler.

One of the best parts is that it shows Churchill didn't necessarily chew up and spit out opponents, but rather that was the crayons and pen marks of contemporaries and historians. Perhaps this film best captures that he recognized what Hitler was before anyone else wanted to acknowledge it, even those that had the Intel to tell them Hitler was going to be a massive problem.

It covers his wife's alleged affair but in a touching way that most have either hidden or written off as unimportant. Churchill was not a strikingly handsome man, so his love so unwavering softens him. We like to picture men of such stature, especially the ones that are less attractive, as emotionally untouchable. That's not realistic and this movie does that fact wonderful justice.

I give it a 9/10 only because I felt some scenes were too short and scenes that would've been included, the in between explaining better some of the situations between the characters needed more time. The one where the wife is threatened never gets a just explanation of what followed. It felt like the studio left some of the script on the floor for "time" constraints rather than intellectual consideration.