“The Gath­er­ing Storm,” a film for tele­vi­sion pro­duced by BBC Films and HBO Inc., star­ring Albert Finney as Win­ston Churchill and Vanessa Red­grave as Clemen­tine, first aired April 2002, 90 minutes.

Churchill films sel­dom engen­der una­nim­ity, but every­one who watched the pre­view, by kind invi­ta­tion of the British Con­sul in Boston, had the same reac­tion to “The Gath­er­ing Storm”: aston­ish­ment at just how good it was. Even in a cyn­i­cal and anti-hero age, film­mak­ers still can recre­ate what Lady Soames calls “The Saga” with­out reduc­ing Churchill to a flawed bur­lesque or a god­like car­i­ca­ture. With the excep­tion of one huge gap in the story line, “The Gath­er­ing Storm” is a masterpiece.

Unex­pect­edly in the male-dominated world of the 1930s, but per­haps inten­tion­ally in 2002, the two great­est sup­port­ing roles are female. Clemen­tine Churchill is one of these. Badly mis­played by Sian Phillips in the “Wilder­ness Years” doc­u­men­tary two decades ago (Finest Hour 38), Clem­mie gets jus­tice here at the hands of Vanessa Redgrave.

Red­grave not only looks the part–Winston Churchill, who should know, tells me the resem­blance is uncanny. But scriptwriter Hugh White­more has also pro­vided her with exactly the right lines as she cajoles, scolds, whee­dles and encour­ages her hus­band. “I often put myself in Clemmie’s shoes,” wrote Lady Diana Cooper, “and as often felt how they pinched and rubbed till I kicked them off, heroic soles and all, and begged my hus­band to rest and be care­ful. For­tu­nately, Clem­mie was a mor­tal of another clay.” (Finest Hour 83:13).

Equally com­pelling is Ava (Lena Headey), the beau­ti­ful wife of Ralph Wigram (Linus Roache) a For­eign Office offi­cial who, as Mar­tin Gilbert revealed in the offi­cial biog­ra­phy, risked his career to bring Churchill secret doc­u­ments on Germany’s rear­ma­ment. Devot­edly, Ava bears her husband’s strain, their deep con­cern for their young, autis­tic son, and the worst that pol­i­tics can throw at her.

Angered by Wigram’s aid to Churchill, a gov­ern­ment toady named Pet­tifer (in fact it was Board of Trade Pres­i­dent Wal­ter Runci­man) vis­its Ava with a threat: If her hus­band doesn’t stop help­ing Churchill he will be trans­ferred abroad, leav­ing Ava and the boy alone in Lon­don. She promptly tells him to do his worst and throws him out.

This is an over­due trib­ute to a little-known hero­ine. Ava Bod­ley mar­ried Ralph Wigram in 1925. After Ralph’s death from polio in 1936 she wrote to WSC: “He adored you so & always said you were the great­est Eng­lish­man alive.” In 1941 she mar­ried John Ander­son, later Vis­count Waverly, Home Sec­re­tary and Chan­cel­lor of the Exche­quer in Churchill’s wartime gov­ern­ment, for whom the Ander­son Shel­ter was named. Churchill was devoted to Ava all his life. When Ander­son died in 1958, Gilbert reports, Churchill tele­phoned her from Chartwell: “After com­mis­er­at­ing with her on Lord Waverly’s death he was silent for a while, then said to her with what sounded like tears in his voice, ‘For Ralph Wigram grieve.’”

Albert Finney, who plays Win­ston Churchill, is ten or fif­teen years too old and looks more like WSC’s nephew Pere­grine. But his man­ner­isms and pale blue eyes are right, and he grows on you, despite unnec­es­sary toi­let scenes and red vel­vet siren suits worn round the clock. Finney over­plays the role—every Churchill imper­son­ator does, except the inim­itable Robert Hardy. But he is all right. Again Whitemore’s script comes through: here and there is a snatch of words Churchill spoke in later or dif­fer­ent con­texts (e.g., a 1939 broad­cast to Amer­ica recast as a Com­mons speech in 1936). But the flow is so seam­less that only the deter­mined critic will notice.

The rest of the cast­ing is good—not per­haps as phys­i­cally exact as in “The Wilder­ness Years,” but con­vinc­ing and finely directed by Richard Lon­craine. Sarah Churchill should have had a flame red wig to hide that mousy hair, and Bren­dan Bracken also starts too dark-haired, though his mop red­dens as the cri­sis mounts! Ran­dolph Churchill is too young and silly; Nigel Havers was a bet­ter Ran­dolph in the 1982 ver­sion. Derek Jacobi makes a life­like Stan­ley Bald­win. Sir Robert Van­sit­tart (Tom Wilkin­son) is the uneasy Under­sec­re­tary of State for For­eign Affairs, bal­anc­ing loy­alty to his gov­ern­ment with fear for his coun­try, say­ing of Churchill, “he demands total loy­alty,” and imply­ing that it’s worth it.

The open­ing scenes at Chartwell in 1934 play like William Manchester’s pro­logue to his sec­ond vol­ume of The Last Lion, pro­vid­ing a pen­e­trat­ing look at the house­hold down to “Mr. Accoun­tant Woods,” who on cue pro­nounces Winston’s finances a sham­bles. Winston’s hobbies—painting, brick­lay­ing, feed­ing his fish, watch­ing his pigs (the famous pig line is de rigueur)—are nicely done, though the fish­pond is not the one at Chartwell. Mary Churchill (now Lady Soames) looks more like a young Chelsea Clin­ton than the beau­ti­ful Mary, but Ron­nie Barker is ideal as Inches, the long-suffering and devoted butler.

If this film were not so good, the gap in the story line would be unfor­giv­able: After 1936 and Baldwin’s retire­ment as Prime Min­is­ter, we skip ahead to the war and Churchill’s arrival at the Admi­ralty. How can a film enti­tled “The Gath­er­ing Storm” ignore the pre­mier­ship of Neville Cham­ber­lain and Munich?

Granted, there are only ninety min­utes, and one can under­stand the omis­sion of, say, the Abdi­ca­tion Cri­sis. But with­out Munich the story falls short of its dra­matic poten­tial. Sadly too, Churchill in Com­mons mainly utters only banal sta­tis­tics about air­craft pro­duc­tion (too often to an empty House—most times he packed the place). By devot­ing fewer min­utes to India and air­craft, they could have allowed Finney to tackle that most famous pre­war ora­tion, after Munich: “I have watched this famous island descend­ing the stair­way which leads to a dark gulf.”

A minor flaw is the fail­ure to iden­tify all the char­ac­ters. Mod­ern audi­ences would ben­e­fit from see­ing the cred­its before the film, the actors por­trayed along­side a few lines iden­ti­fy­ing the char­ac­ters they rep­re­sent. But there’s lit­tle else to crit­i­cize, and what’s miss­ing in 1937-39 is bal­anced by what’s included in 1934-36. Per­haps they’ve left room for a sequel?

The essence of this film is not so much the urgency of the hour, the naivete of Britain’s lead­ers, their refusal to act “until self-preservation strikes its jar­ring gong,” Churchill’s defi­ant warn­ings when nobody would lis­ten (his true finest hour, many think)—and the rel­e­vance of Britain’s iner­tia to our grow­ing lethargy today, in the face of equally per­ilous threats. All that is there—but pri­mar­ily this is a love story.

The inten­sity of Win­ston and Clementine’s devo­tion to one another per­me­ates the tale. From their spats over money to their rapid rec­on­cil­i­a­tions; from Winston’s cha­grin at Clemmie’s four-month sojourn in the South Seas (“If it weren’t for Mary I’d be awfully mis­er­able”), to his impromptu romp through his fish­pond upon her return; to his touch­ing trib­ute as he heads for the Admi­ralty (“thank you for lov­ing me”), the film exudes the emo­tional ties that all mar­riages should have, and theirs did. Churchill once described his mar­riage: “Here firm, though all be drift­ing.” For­tu­nately for him, it really was. Give BBC and HBO a tip of the hat.

Tagged as: Chamberlain, Finney, Gathering Storm, Munich, Ralph Wigram, Redgrave, television