I enjoyed this very much, although I had certain quibbles. Finney is excellent and you forget that you are watching an actor. It could be argued that he portrays Churchill as an older man than he actually was in the 1930's when he was in his early 60's. The Finney Churchill is more like the late-war Winston, approaching 70. Derek Jacobi is miscast as Baldwin, who was a much more avuncular character, at least in his public persona. He is also not physically bulky enough. Poor old Neville Chamberlain is airbrushed out altogether and the film skates straight over the 1938 Munich Crisis, the apogee of Appeasement and deprived Churchill of some of his best lines, e.g. 'We have suffered an unmitigated defeat. On the other hand Vanessa Redgrave was superb as Clemmie and when Churchill returned to the Admiralty in triumph I shed an unashamed tear.

For most, the life of Sir Winston Churchill begins with WWII. In "The Gathering Storm", Finney brings Churchill to life with a superb representation of the man as an aging member of parliament, husband, father, friend, and man of the manor Chartwell in the decade prior to WWII. With a fine supporting cast and an excellent screenplay, "TGS" is a must see for WWII history buffs and anyone with a particular interest in Churchill, the man.

This truly is a superb biography of probably the greatest prime minister that England has ever known. Albert Finney gives one of his best performances out of many as Churchill, becoming him in every way, and not afraid to literally show us Winston in the buff. With the beautiful Vanessa Redgrave as his wife, you really get a glimpse into their marriage that shows the love, honesty, arguments and even tenderness, talking to scene near the conclusion where the Gruffs any breaks down and tells her how he never thought he would receive love like what he gets from her. You rarely get to see a man of such power and commanding presence be so brutally honest about his emotions. Vanessa's radiant smile shows a woman of such compassion and tenderness and integrity that you wish she did not disappear for a good quarter of the film.

The story focuses on Churchill's years as head of the conservative party, dealing with rising conflict in the early years of Hitler's Germany. He is not yet prime minister, but obviously perhaps the most respected member of Parliament, and as he fights the anti semitic views of many of his colleagues, he finds himself being opposed as Britain struggles to deal with a world crisis. Churchill gets to show how he deals with his devoted staff, fully dedicated to his idealism and even respected colleagues, as they turn against his methodology of how to deal with the greatest villain of the 20th Century.

So this isn't really a war story. It is a pre-war story and you see the psychological conflicts rising rather than a battle of the fields. This is a film filled with humor yet real emotional struggles, as Hitler, while not seen, is felt throughout as the giant snake taking over Europe with his intentions of furthering hate and destruction. A superb supporting cast includes such familiar faces as Derek Jacobi, Tom Wilkinson, Hugh Bonneville and Jim Broadbent, and even with the people who are opposed to Churchill's methods you can find some sort of sympathy with although a few are definitely anti-semitic in their feelings and obviously have an agenda which would ultimately support the Nazis. But these characters are not presented in black-and-white terms, featuring many Greys that ultimately would not benefit world peace. This definitely belongs on a list of modern classics dealing with World War II which does erupt at the end, and for both Churchill and Albert Finney, this ends up on a triumphant note which wood show triumph in the world once again against evil even though it had to follow a long string of atrocities.