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Victory at Sea

Director Christopher Nolan is known for two different types of films: large-scale epics exploring outsize concepts such as good vs. evil and the meaning of consciousness ("Batman Begins", "Inception"), and smaller offerings that intrigue and dazzle the viewer with mind-bending narrative twists ("Memento," "The Prestige"). He's previously combined the two approaches, as in 2014's "Interstellar," the story of a scientist who undertakes a risky mission to save the earth and ends up testing both the limits of time and the bonds of human connection. Mr. Nolan's latest, "Dunkirk," again provides a melding of the two elements for which the director is known. It's a historic epic based on a mass evacuation of British soldiers from French shores in the midst of World War II, featuring both towering scenes of bravura filmmaking and narrative knots that intermingle storylines and retell moments from different characters' perspectives. While this blended approach has been successful elsewhere, with "Dunkirk" it's something of an uneasy mix.

The storyline providing the main thread through "Dunkirk" is that of Tommy (newcomer Fionn Whitehead), a young British soldier desperately seeking any way off the beaches of Dunkirk. He's garrisoned with thousands of other Allied soldiers hemmed in by German troops and under periodic, terrifying attack by land, sea, and air. The Allied campaign has failed and the soldiers, many of them injured, desperately await evacuation back to England.  The frustrating wait is particularly galling for the Brits as they are just across the Channel from home; the crossing from France to England across the Strait of Dover is approximately 20 nautical miles. As several characters wistfully mention, "You can practically see it from here."

Tommy pairs up with another young renegade and together they undertake various schemes to scramble aboard outgoing ships. The evacuation is slowed by such maddening logistics as the need to load  troops onto the large carrier ships from a stone mole, or pier, stretching far out from shore. There's a tense early sequence where Tommy and his fellow soldier wordlessly hoist the stretcher of an injured soldier and race along the beach toward a departing ship, hoping to use their injured comrade as cover to skirt the line of others waiting to board. But German air troops bomb the pier and the pair barely escape. This sets up a series of events where Tommy's circumstances go from bad to worse as he subsequently finds himself trapped in the hold of a sinking ship, then in the water trying to avoid an oil fire, and later inside a grounded fishing boat trying to hide from German soldiers. It also illustrates how very vulnerable the beached troops are, particularly in the moments when Axis bombers dip low overhead and the troops on the pier have no hope of cover from the onslaught.

Woven into Tommy's story are other tales that provide different firsthand perspectives, giving an overall sense of the scope of this massive evacuation and all that's needed to make it work. The venerable Kenneth Branagh (Wallander) adds gravity with his portrayal of Commander Bolton, who's in charge of the Dunkirk retreat. Bolton provides periodic observations about military strategy and logistical roadblocks that serve as something of a guide for viewers who may not be familiar with this episode from the history books. One particularly useful piece of info is that Prime Minister Churchill has put out the call for non-military boats to assist with the evacuation, so we see Mark Rylance ("Bridge of Spies") as Mr. Dawson, who's briskly ushering his son Peter (Tom Glynn-Carney) and friend George (Barry Keoghan, "Mammal") onto the family boat. Soon they are in open water and headed to Dunkirk. Another thread is supplied by Tom Hardy ("The Revenant") and Jack Lowden ("Denial") as RAF pilots doing battle with German planes in the skies above the French coast. And, there's Cillian Murphy (Peaky Blinders) as a shell-shocked soldier who unexpectedly crosses paths with Mr. Dawson and his young crew.

Mr. Nolan has never been a filmmaker who spoon-feeds details to the audience, and part of the wonder of his more intricate works is in bearing with the storytelling and awaiting the moment of surprise when the disparate elements snap together and the elegance of his overall vision is revealed. But "Dunkirk" struggles some in the telling. The transitions from one storyline to another are occasionally jarring, with the RAF bits feeling particularly dropped in; nevermind the fact that it seems unforgivably prodigal to put the smolderingly charismatic Mr. Hardy in a role where he never sees physical action and only interacts with other characters via a scratchy two-way radio. And when it becomes at least somewhat clear how these characters all fit together, the result is less of an "aha!" moment and more of an "oh..."

Still, "Dunkirk" succeeds mightily when it's personalizing episodes that otherwise feel distant as a result of time and scale, and at such moments it's a stunningly immersive experience. Audiences will feel the heartbeat of panic as German bombers approach from above and moments later the world erupts in conflagration, or suffer in empathetic disorientation as a troop ship is bombed and the men in its hold suddenly find themselves trapped helplessly underwater in the roiling dark. The vast expanses of beach are gorgeously photographed, with a beautiful blue cast that is alternately coolly soothing and pitilessly cold, and fog that periodically swirls in to evocatively blanket the proceedings. And seeing soldiers peer down the stretches of sand that dwarf the troops clustered there, or watching them tread wearily through dirty curds of seafoam, communicates realities that the history books could never hope to touch. "Dunkirk" also bests even "Saving Private Ryan" at conveying the schizophrenic realities of battlefield life, with stretches of mind-numbing boredom and pointless exercises punctuated by short, desperate struggles to stay alive long enough to take that next precious breath.

Given all of this, it seems curmudgeonly to take issue with the occasional points where the storytelling wanders into Hollywood melodrama territory, or takes on the feel of a propaganda film with the text of Churchill's "We shall fight on the beaches" speech being read over the closing frames. The better conclusion is this: despite uneven moments, "Dunkirk" demonstrates towering technical prowess and raw emotional truth. Balancing those elements effectively in a film is always a battle, and despite losing the occasional skirmish, in the end Mr. Nolan does ultimately win the war.