DUNKIRK 95
in the sand. After the two silently bond, they pick up a wounded soldier on a
stretcher and rush him to a departing hospital ship as a pretext for their own escape.
Ordered off the ship after delivering the wounded soldier, the two men then hide
under the pier, ready to try and stow away, but the ship is suddenly bombed and
sunk by a German Stuka dive- bomber. The two men manage to save Alex (Harry
Styles), a young soldier. The trio gets on another vessel that night, but it is sunk by
a German U- boat. Gibson saves Alex and Tommy from drowning, and they find a
way back to shore. The next day, they board a small beached trawler with a group
of soldiers from the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders and wait inside its hold for
the tide to come in and refloat the boat out to sea. However, the boat is not within
the British perimeter, and the Germans shoot at it for target practice. When the
tide eventually rises, there are so many bullet holes in the boat’s hull that it cannot
stay afloat. Alex then makes allegations that Gibson— who has remained mute—
is a German spy and must leave to balance the ship. Tommy comes to his aid, but
Gibson admits that his true heritage is French—he has co- opted the identity of a
British soldier. The ship begins to sink and the troops evacuate, but as they do,
Gibson gets tangled in a chain and drowns. Alex and Tommy eventually board
Mr. Dawson’s (Mark Rylance) boat and return home to a hero’s welcome by citi-
zens. [II. The Sea] At a dock in England, Mr. Dawson, a middle- aged civilian sailor,
decides not to turn over his boat to the Royal Navy to evacuate soldiers from
Dunkirk but opts instead to sail it himself, with the assistance of his 17- year- old
son, Peter (Tom Glynn- Carney), and Peter’s friend (George Barry Keoghan). On
their trip across the En glish Channel, they encounter a shivering, shell- shocked
soldier (Cillian Murphy), the sole survivor of a U- boat attack, huddled on the stern
of his mostly submerged vessel. The soldier climbs aboard but once he realizes they
are heading to Dunkirk, he attempts to turn the boat around. A scuffle ensues;
George is knocked below decks and sustains a severe head injury. When a Spitfire
ditches in the water nearby, Mr. Dawson insists on helping the pi lot, Collins ( Jack
Lowden), who is stuck in his cockpit by a damaged canopy as the plane sinks. After
they free Collins and help him aboard the boat, Peter reveals that his older brother,
now dead, was a Hurricane pi lot. Mr. Dawson later saves the lives of several sol-
diers, including Alex and Tommy. George dies from his injury, but Peter decides
against telling the shivering soldier about this, insisting that George will fine. They
eventually reach England, and Mr. Dawson is celebrated for his heroics as George’s
body is removed from the boat. The local paper later labels 17- year- old George a
“Dunkirk hero.” [III. The Air] In the skies over the En glish Channel, three Spitfire
pilots— Farrier (Tom Hardy), Collins, and their unnamed leader— approach
Dunkirk. The leader is the first to go in a dogfight with a Luftwaffe fighter plane.
Continuing east, Farrier and Collins are successful in taking down a Nazi plane,
but Collins’ Spitfire is fired upon and he crashes into the sea. Farrier continues
alone. Though low on fuel, he guards the skies over the Dunkirk beaches, getting
applause from all the soldiers— even Commander Bolton (Kenneth Branagh), the
highest- ranking officer on the beach. Out of fuel, Collins cranks down his land-
ing gear by hand and lands his plane on the beach north of Dunkirk, sets it on
fire, and is taken prisoner by German soldiers.