In the summer of 1953 Churchill (Michael Gambon) suffered a stroke. With Anthony Eden (Alex Jennings) in the US having a gall bladder operation (outpatient surgery today) it was decided to hide his ailment from the press, the world , and the opposition party. The film also looks at Millie Appleyard (Romola Garai) a fictional nurse who has headed to Australia with her fiance to "put his dreams before mine." The dry martini family is called home and their bickering continue.

The performances were outstanding. The theme of the film was to show us how the dreams and aspirations of great people affect the lives of everyone around them. As stated, "There is a price to pay for greatness, but the great seldom pay it." We see the price his family had to pay, and "the rock" his wife had to be to stand by his side, realizing that it was all about him.

The fictional and slightly anachronistic nurse, a woman who (plot spoiler) follows her own dreams was placed there as an alternative to living your life for your own dreams instead of your spouse as Lady Churchill (Lindsay Duncan) gallantly did.

Michael Gambon as Winston and Lindsay Duncan as Clementine Churchill lead a good cast in a good recreation of the 50s and the hidden crisis that the United Kingdom had at the time. If you can imagine a situation where Barack Obama suffered a stroke and Joe Biden was also incapacitated with bad jaundice then you have some idea of what Great Britain was going through. And the media stayed silent.

After leading the Conservative Party to victory in 1951 Churchill two years later sustains a serious stroke and it's touch and go. Anthony Eden as Foreign Secretary was considered the heir apparent, in fact he had even expected to lead the party in 1951, but patiently put his ambitions on a backburner.

Alex Jennings plays an increasingly impatient Anthony Eden who felt that Churchill had just stayed on and Eden was ambitious to have his turn at the top of the greasy pole. What you're seeing here concerning them is true enough. What is not shown is that when the torch passed Eden got himself and the country in a royal mess over the Suez Canal and his government barely lasted two years.

My favorite is Michael Macfayden as Randolph Churchill. Winston's only son was the belligerent drunken lout you see here. But like his three surviving sisters could never come out from so great a shadow. Oddly enough Winston's relationship with his father Randolph was somewhat the same.

The only equivalents I can see in our history was when Grover Cleveland had that cancer operation one of the very first performed in his second term and no one knew until 20 years later. Also Churchill's counterpart FDR spent an entire month during World War II almost in seclusion at Bernard Baruch's estate in South Carolina and the public never knew at the time. Roosevelt was in almost terminal exhaustion from war leadership and he would die within two years of that.

Churchill's Secret is good history for the viewer.

The cast for this film was amazing. It's hard to have a declared spoiler as we generally know how the story ends from the history books. The movie allows a little glimpse into the internal family conflicts of the most famous Prime Minister in British history. I'll say that not enough explanation is given regarding concerns for Eden, who is barely visible in the film though he was arguably a major rival for the PM and trying to trip up the aging Churchill to make a name for himself. There's another movie that treats this aspect of Churchill's life more thoroughly. This film is more homey.