Nolan’s film chooses to ignore tales such as that of the
Medway Queen, a paddle steamer that brought home 7,000 troops in seven round trips and shot down three German planes, or the
Royal Daffodil, which returned 9,500 soldiers after blocking a hole below the waterline with a mattress. Instead, we encounter just one boat, skippered by a saintly Mark Rylance, comically attired in his Sunday best.
[...]
Another flaunted absence is CGI. Scale is the essence of the Dunkirk myth. There were more than
330,000 soldiers on the beach, and 933 British vessels, naval and private, plying the waves. It is for this kind of situation that computers were invented, but according to Nolan
CGI counts as giving up.
So, in spite of his film’s $150m budget, the Royal Air Force seems to consist of three Spitfires, although real-life pilots flew 3,500 sorties at Dunkirk. The Luftwaffe, which Hitler made solely responsible for wiping out the beached Brits, seems able to summon up little more than a couple of Messerschmitts, three Stukas and one bomber. The Royal Navy appears to comprise just two destroyers; in fact, it deployed 39 destroyers and 309 other craft.
Women are excluded from the action by being confined to stereotypical roles, such as providing tea for the homecoming menfolk. In real life, female Auxiliary Territorial Service telephonists – who received two-thirds of a male soldier’s pay –
were some of the last military personnel to leave the beach. The evacuees also included female civilians,
including girls, caught up in the turmoil.