In terms of both narrative and nuance, “Churchill” has a limited scope. Director Jonathan Teplitzky and screenwriter Alex von Tunzelmann follow the English prime minister (Brian Cox) over the course of several days leading up to the D-Day invasion. Although that 1944 mission — dubbed Operation Overlord — was ultimately a success, Winston Churchill had his doubts, to the chagrin of the Allied High Command.
The film spends a lot of time dressing down its subject — Churchill argues with everyone in his immediate circle — yet “Churchill” celebrates him anyway. This incongruity is frustrating, and Teplitzky deepens it with one overwrought, predictable choice after another.
When we are first introduced to the title character, he is standing on a beach. The tide is red — at least in Churchill’s imagination, where he worries that the invasion will lead to a bloodbath. Churchill meets with generals — Eisenhower (John Slattery) and Montgomery (Julian Wadham) — begging them to find an alternative to a full-on assault.
Although everyone else, including King George (James Purefoy), agrees that it is the best shot at defeating Germany, Churchill protests and bellows, more out of ego than out of concern for Allied forces, turning “Churchill” into the study of a man facing encroaching obsolescence. Meanwhile, Churchill’s wife, Clementine (Miranda Richardson), struggles to shape her husband into the man her country needs him to be, going so far as to work behind his back to stop his foolhardy ideas.