#dunkirk beach

“Dunkirk” Movie Review

Dunkirk is the latest cinematic outing from writer and director Christopher Nolan (The Dark Knight, Inception, Interstellar) and stars Tom Hardy, Mark Rylance, Cillian Murphy, Kenneth Branagh, Harry Styles, and Fionn Whitehead. The film takes place during the evacuation of and battle at Dunkirk beach in 1940, before the U.S. involvement in WWII. Over 400,000 men of the Belgian, French, and English military are stuck on this beach, trying to evacuate so that they can get to England, just across the sea. But the German military is relentless and with the enemy closing in on all sides, attempting to snuff out any remaining allied forces, hope is their only weapon and survival is victory.

I think we as a movie-going population may have put Christopher Nolan on a bit too high of a pedestal; he is a talented filmmaker to be sure, and certainly doesn’t lack the ambition necessary to be a memorable cinematic presence, but even he can have his blunders. It seems that anyone who gives this movie a negative review is being criticized because they “simply did not understand the purpose” of a film like this one. But that must be put to rest. One can understand entirely what kind of film this is and the message which it’s trying to convey and still think that Nolan has made a truly disappointing WWII film. All film is subjective, and there are plenty of reasons why someone is allowed to not like a film that is seemingly being hailed as one of Nolan’s greatest efforts thus far. All this is only to say: if someone says they don’t like this movie, don’t punish them for it; just listen to why. Did I like this movie? Yes, I did like it for the most part.

Right from the opening scene, Nolan drops you into the conflict with breakneck pacing. The first gunshot that ever rings out is as terrifying and haunting in its sound as anything one sees for the entire rest of the film. His skills as a director are unquestionable here as he maneuvers each moment to feel genuinely real and exceedingly urgent with each passing minute. The film takes place in three separate locations and on three separate timelines: one week is spent on land, one day is spent on the sea, and in the air, the story spans but one singular hour. And almost each and every moment is ripe with tension. Many were worried about this being a PG-13 WWII movie as opposed to one that would be rated R, but once the film is seen, it becomes clear why an R rating isn’t at all necessary. Nolan has chosen to make a film not about the horrors of war, but about the terrors of war. Each gunshot, explosion, or scream that rings out adds to the genuine terror that the soldiers seem to be experiencing for most of the film. And with DP Hoyte Van Hoytema shooting the picture using a mix of IMAX cameras and 70mm film, Nolan crafts some of the most haunting and beautiful WWII film imagery to date. And the sound design is some of the most brilliant ever created in cinematic history. It will certainly go on to the Oscars for that at least.

The entire cast is very good in their performances, and even Harry Styles (former member of One Direction) in his acting debut feels right at home on Nolan’s camera, showing adequately that he has the chops for it if he wants to continue doing film for a while. Kenneth Branagh is at perhaps his most understated ever; Cillian Murphy portrays a victim of shellshock with just enough emotion for it to feel genuine without feeling forced, and Tom Hardy as a pilot for the Royal Air Force feels confident and assured that he knows what he’s doing. Mark Rylance, though, is the standout performer, proving that his Oscar win for Steven Spielberg’s Bridge of Spies was in fact not a mistake. Nolan utilizes every actor he has well, even if he doesn’t do the same with the characters.

And this is where we start to get into some of the negatives about the film. Don’t get me wrong, I understand the purpose of this film is to reflect the events of the Dunkirk evacuation, not tell the story of just one person in it, but still one cannot help but feel that following even an entire ensemble of central protagonists would have at least given the film some sense of credibility in terms of having a narrative thru-line at all. Nolan chooses deliberately not to focus on any one character (or any section of characters) for too long, and although it does lend an aspect of realism to the picture in the sense that these kinds of conflicts don’t often breed stories of one singular person to root for, one can’t help but feel held at arm’s length from any emotion that may have otherwise been present. Simply put, it’s difficult to relate to any character in this film because Nolan never lets you get close enough to do so. And while the separate time frames do all join together toward the end of the picture to form one long, cohesive moment of fantastic battle tension, that moment comes just a little too late, and one is ultimately left feeling like the separate timelines come across more as a filmmaking experiment that didn’t really pay off as well as it should have. All of this is not to say that the film is a bad one, but there are certain flaws with it that I simply can’t get past.

Despite all the rave reviews saying it’s the film Nolan’s entire career has been working toward, I have a feeling Dunkirk is going to be somewhat divisive among longtime film enthusiasts and fans of the director’s previous work. The film is a fantastic spectacle of a war movie with genuine moments of terror to be sure, but it’s hard to care to any emotional effect about any of the deaths that happen or the eventual success of the evacuation without having spent sufficient time to build a connection to those that are being evacuated. Despite that though, Nolan has crafted a WWII event movie that is going to make waves as one of the best of its kind (event films, not WWII films), even if it’s still not the best of his own filmography. Still, it’s certainly a cinematic experience that should not be missed. See it on the biggest screen you can find.