We all know the long and short of the D-Day story, but for anyone wondering what the Allied forces’ meteorologists were up to in the seventy-two hours before the scheduled invasion on the 5th of June 1944, Pressure is here to answer the call.
The second feature from Hotel Mumbai director Anthony Maras, it sees two fantastic actors go head to head with one another, with Andrew Scott (still best known as Moriarty from BBC’s Sherlock) as Scottish weather specialist Group Captain Dr. James Stagg and Brendan Fraser as Eisenhower himself.
‘If we delay beyond Monday, they will see through all of this. Every single effort that we have made will have been for nothing.’
The plans are set and the troops are already in position. D-Day will run as expected on Monday the 5th, or the Allies will lose their pivotal window of opportunity and, perhaps, the war with it. The generals need a clear and confident forecast (in all senses) to ensure that the attack will go off without a hitch and Stagg has been brought in from his position at Dunstable to give it to them, at Churchill’s personal recommendation.
Leaving his pregnant wife at home, he’s driven into the country, to the Army’s country manor headquarters, which look a bit like Downton Abbey, where he’s given less than a day to present a forecast to the board. His team have been slacking off, their data is ancient and the only instrument he’s got to work off of is a grand piano, but Stagg gets everyone working overtime right away, much to the chagrin of the usual top-dog, Chris Messina’s arrogant Col Krick. Krick’s adamant that D-Day will see nothing but clear skies, and despite two oncoming storms approaching Normandy at top speed, Stagg finds himself outvoted and undermined at every turn.
While it’s so often not the case elsewhere, Pressure is a film that clearly understands the promise of its title, effectively cranking up the tension at a steady pace with every scene. It’s a slow burn, one that I felt moved almost too slowly in short stretches – even with Scott and Fraser throwing their all into their performances, with generally fantastic results – but viewed as a whole, the idea plays out on-screen really well.
When Stagg steps into the building, the camera literally spins around him to dizzying effect, with a blaring montage that shows us all the intricacies of the Army base – their switchboards; phone lines; communications and so on – before Stagg himself finally snaps and harangues one poor bloke for being too loud. Things pull back somewhat from that initial burst, but Scott’s curt manner in his portrayal of Stagg lends a sense of a simmering pot that could spill over at any time.
He’s a surprisingly prickly protagonist, but Maras cleverly intersperses tiny scenes of the waiting troops between the present action to help us understand that it’s the lives at stake that drives Stagg’s attitude here, rather than his ego. It’s hard not to side with him in his frustration when so few others seem able to see reason.
One such measured voice comes from Kerry Condon’s character, Eisenhower’s private secretary, Kay Summersby. While it was great to see Jamie Lee Curtis win something of a lifetime achievement Oscar back in 2023, I’ve always been of the opinion that it should have been Condon taking home the trophy that year for her work in The Banshees of Inisherin. Similarly to her role in that film, she’s precariously positioned here as a rare female voice amidst a cloud of testosterone but I was surprised by the positive and supportive spin she was able to bring to the narrative here. It could easily not have worked, or could perhaps have felt out of step with everything else going on, but Summersby fits well as a stalwart presence to temper the men’s, well, tempers.
I might have liked to see her given an even larger role, really.
Performances across the board are very strong. Messina is easy to hate as Krick, and Damian Lewis plays a tight-lipped military man who seems determined to have things play out his way. Fraser lends more emotion to Eisenhower than you’d initially expect – similarly to Stagg, he’s a man who appreciates the lives on the line and who also, even in his strong position, feels the need to truly prove himself. When it comes time for him to lose his wick a bit and raise his voice, his performance doesn’t fare as well – occasionally it’s as if he’s been asked to do The Hulk for a second – but those moments are thankfully brief and easy to push aside, especially when he comes into his own later on.
The film as a whole manages to move from strength to strength. We begin with a good, if not outstanding, first act that could really have gone either way, but that foundation is built upon really nicely to ensure that the narrative hits its stride from that point onwards.
Lots of films start off strong and lose themselves along the way, so I was pleasantly surprised to find myself getting more and more invested as time went on and, ultimately, emotional in a way that crept up on me.
Almost like one of Stagg’s own hurricanes, there was a sense of rising potential before those clouds burst brilliantly in the third act, capping the whole picture off very nicely with some proper war movie drama that did, in fact, have me egging the troops along under my breath.
I can’t tell you quite how things wrap up – I’m not entirely clear on what constitutes a spoiler as far as real-world history is concerned – but this was a sturdy piece of wartime drama that managed to come at D-Day through the eyes of the weathermen. It’s a tricky task to pull off – the potential for boredom is even lampshaded in the film itself – but the cast’s performances and the confidence of the plotting manage to carry the war effort over the line.
BBFC: Rated 12A for infrequent strong language, moderate violence, injury detail.
Pressure is in cinemas now.
