Gary Oldman brings life to much-enacted personality as Winston Churchill

Winston Churchill lived a life that was long and “not … entirely uneventful,” as he once put it, and so it’s only fitting that he should be the subject of movies. Hence, across the veil of years, we have seen tall Churchills, obese Churchills, sloppy Churchills, gross Churchills and scowling bulldog Churchills, and yet not one movie or TV Churchill has come close to giving us the man in full, both in look and spirit, until Gary Oldman in “Darkest Hour.”

For viewers interested in history, the fascination of this performance — the sense of actually seeing events we have only imagined — has no comparison in impact besides that of Daniel Day-Lewis in “Lincoln.” There he is — not tall, not especially fat.