By Mark Fields
Odd WWII Drama Hinges on Predicting the Weather
Apparently, according to this true story until now untold on the screen, the D-Day invasion of the Normandy beaches in June 1944 depended largely on the ability to predict the weather. More to the point, it depended on Supreme Commander Dwight Eisenhower choosing which of two conflicting predictions he wanted to believe.
Pressure focuses on the taut final days before the launch of the most complex seaborne invasion in history, one that has the potential to shift the momentum of the war against the Nazis. Eisenhower (Brendan Fraser) has gathered the British and American leaders of the Allied Command at Southwick House in rural England to make final preparations. At Winston Churchill’s recommendation, he has also invited Caption James Stagg (Andrew Scott), a revered British military meteorologist.
Stagg, a stereotypical taciturn and priggish Scot, is tasked with forecasting the notoriously unpredictable Northern European weather for the D-Day invasion in a matter of hours. Stagg immediately runs into a conflict with an American forecaster, Irving Krick (Chris Messina), fresh off a run of successful forecasts for Eisenhower’s African campaigns. Krick is convinced that the day of choice, June 5, will be perfect; Stagg insistently believes otherwise. The rest of the film unfolds as an edgy competition between the two men, each confident of his own accuracy, with Eisenhower stuck trying to determine which way to go.
Anyone who knows their WWII history knows that the actual D-Day was June 6 (not 5), but how the story – and the movie – get to that point will be left for the viewer to discover.
The acting in Pressure is uniformly excellent. Though physically Fraser seems a strange choice for the role of Eisenhower, he embodies the character commandingly. Scott, always a strong actor, is good here again in a humorless, hard-to-love role. Messina holds his own with the other two. And, Damien Lewis and Kerry Condon are fine in the only significant supporting roles.
Similarly, the pacing, camera work, and production design of the film are all solid, though not extraordinary in any particular way. The concluding beach battle scenes are stirring, but really only echo similar scenes from Saving Private Ryan, which Spielberg made so exceptionally graphic and intense.
I have seen a lot of World War II films extract intense drama from a host of different aspects, but I have never seen a war movie inspired by weather forecast. As serious as Pressure wants to be taken, it is a genuine challenge to make air temperatures and wind speeds into compelling cinematic drama. No matter how true this story might be, Pressure seems a little silly in the end.
Official Trailer
