by Eugene Blazejowski Walsh
Worth: $14.00
FilmInk rates movies out of $20 — the score indicates the amount we believe a ticket to the movie to be worth
Cast:
Andrew Scott, Brendan Fraser, Kerry Condon, Chris Messina, Damian Lewis
Intro:
… a character-driven war film, in part held back by uneven pacing, though the top-tier performances, unique subject matter and a late-stage depiction of war on the ground, leave a strong impression.
In 1961, on the way to his inauguration, incoming president John F. Kennedy asked outgoing president Dwight D. Eisenhower about the success of the Battle of Normandy. Eisenhower replied, “We had better meteorologists than the Germans.”
It is this quote that bookends Pressure, directed by Australian Anthony Maras (Hotel Mumbai), a film about one meteorologist in particular, and how he sways the outcome of World War II over the course of 61 hours. This film is a captivating microclimate of star performances, and everything you have ever needed to know about weather patterns.
Andrew Scott has a remarkable talent for taking characters who appear detached at first and giving them a real warmth – think of his portrayal of Adam in All of Us Strangers. Where his physicality is inflexible, he has a warmth in his eyes that he reserves only for the camera and, by extension, the audience.
In Pressure, he brings this talent to the Scottish Group Captain James Stagg, the chief meteorological officer summoned to work at the Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force at Southwick House in Hampshire. Stagg is a difficult figure: demanding of his team and meticulous to a fault. He alienates himself from the others straight away, especially fellow meteorologist Irving P. Krick (Chris Messina), a man Stagg sees as cocky, though others find him charismatic.
Stagg meets and immediately clashes with Eisenhower (Brendan Fraser), here a U.S. Army general nearly a decade before the presidency. Haunted by the failure of Exercise Tiger, a rehearsal for D-Day in which 749 men died, Eisenhower is burdened by shame. Fraser plays that shame in a quietly drooping face, then draws himself up into the imposing general determined to succeed.
The performances of Scott and Fraser are the height of the film’s emotional force. Their push-and-pull relationship is the heart of Pressure, where opposing fronts meet to chart a course for D-Day (Operation Overlord).
As the pressure mounts at Southwick House, Scott and Fraser succumb to frustration and anger, yet in darker corners, their more intimate moments of exhaustion and the watery eyes of grief come to the fore. A supporting performance by Kerry Condon as Kay Summersby – Eisenhower’s private secretary and confidante – matches their emotional range with restraint. She is the balancing force between the competing male characters.
Meteorology is not an easy subject with which to capture an audience’s attention… yet here it is wholly engrossing. It is a detail that would otherwise seem incidental, made monumental through the visual architecture of the film thanks to Maras – director, co-writer (with David Haig, who wrote the 2014 stage play) and editor. This is most evident in the blocking of his characters, where he gives them space to play more to the camera and the audience than other works grounded in realism.
This is supported by the work of cinematographer Jamie D. Ramsay, adept at both the bloody war scenes and the claustrophobic corners of Southwick House.
Being a character-driven film doesn’t excuse other elements of the construction that don’t stand up to the performances. The film drops us in with no moments to spare, with the first third moving at a jarring pace. Relationships are barely established before plot points are rushed through. It is only in the second third that the wind settles, and a steadier pace is found, allowing the characters room to build an emotional storm for the final third.
Pressure is a character-driven war film, in part held back by uneven pacing, though the top-tier performances, unique subject matter and a late-stage depiction of war on the ground, leave a strong impression. The final third of this film, where D-Day unfolds in both Hampshire and Normandy, is heart-wrenching.
By the time the weather breaks, so do we.
