Dunkirk is a great film, as long as you don't go into it, as my parents did, expecting a standard World War II story of heroism and valor in the face of a powerful evil force. Dunkirk is not a war movie; it's a survival film. And that's not to say I don't personally enjoy war movies, because I absolutely do. But Dunkirk is something else, something different. It's almost akin to an arthouse flick, but created with the budget and scale of a traditional summer blockbuster. Christopher Nolan, the director, does an excellent job of promoting a sense of anxiety and dread in the mind of the viewer. Oh boy, does he really do an excellent job of this! But Nolan does not make you care for the characters as would another director, such as Spielberg or the Coen brothers. That's not the point of this movie, or really any of Nolan's other films (with Interstellar perhaps being the sole exception). The point of the film is the atmosphere, the tension, the visceral FEELING of being trapped alongside hundreds of thousands of your fellow soldiers on the beaches of Dunkirk. It's the seemingly fruitless struggle against an unspeakable, creeping darkness that cannot be stopped, much less seen or understood. Dunkirk is not about a war; it's about the sensation of war. And if you go into the film with this in mind, you will find yourself appreciating Dunkirk much more than you otherwise would.