Pressure Parent Guide

The largest seaborne invasion in the history of the world is days away, and any number of things could go wrong – the Nazis could get hold of the invasion plans, the advance bombardment could fail, the airborne landings could go awry – but the biggest unknown is the weather. 

According to Colonel Krick (Chris Messina), Supreme Allied Commander General Dwight D. Eisenhower’s (Brendan Fraser) meteorologist since the invasion of North Africa, the weather for the landings should be clear and sunny. James Stagg (Andrew Scott), the Royal Air Force’s Meteorological Officer, disagrees. His forecast sees high winds, low clouds, poor visibility, and rough seas for June 5^th, 1944 – conditions risky enough to derail the entire Allied invasion of Europe. Nobody wants to hear bad news, though, and even with some help from Eisenhower’s personal secretary, Kay Summersby (Kerry Condon), Stagg will be hard-pressed to convince anybody that his theory is compelling enough to call off one of the most complex military operations in history. 

It is a testament to the screenwriters that a film about weather can be so compelling. But when the freedom of Europe and the death of Nazism hinge precariously on the fickle weather in the North Atlantic, though, the suspense makes more sense. The stately English country home housing the Allied Supreme Headquarters is a pressure cooker of butting heads, personal tragedies, and a deadline which has an unpleasantly “now-or-never” feel to it. The film is gripping.

Part of that boils down to a zippy sub-two-hour runtime, rare for historical dramas and war films in general, but which kept me glued to the screen. A bigger part of the movie’s success is the strong performances from the entire cast. You can almost hear the sand running out in Eisenhower’s mental hourglass as Brendan Fraser contemplates another nightcap in his lonely trailer or hear the mildly demented gears grinding in Field Marshal Montgomery’s head as Damien Lewis paces about the place. Andrew Scott is, in comparison, reserved and quiet, but no less determined or motivated. 

Since the movie is mostly about the planning for the invasion, there isn’t a huge amount of violence on screen, but there’s enough. Graphic depictions of war violence are hard to avoid when your story inevitably leads to the gates of infantry landing ships opening onto beaches covered by machine guns and mortars, but the film maintains its focus in headquarters rather than the bloodstained beaches of Normandy. Profanity is, likewise, shockingly limited, although you can see some high-intensity 1940’s drinking and smoking. As with most war movies, this is a poor choice for young children, but teens getting into history will hopefully find the film almost as interesting as I did.

About author

Keith Hawkes

Keith Hawkes graduated from Mount Royal University, Calgary, Canada with a degree in English and History. His interests are movies, American literature, science fiction, almost every kind of music, and museums. He enjoys criticizing films for fun - although he's okay with being paid for it.