Pressure review – stormy weather in tense D-day forecast retelling
Andrew Scott finds levels of complexity in a stoic character based on meteorologist James Stagg, the man who persuaded Eisenhower to delay Operation Overlord, for this slick wartime drama The historic gamble of D-day 1944 gets a new perspective in this slick and watchable, if slightly cheesy and unreflective, period drama, whose staginess reflects its origins in theatre; David Haig adapts his play with the director Anthony Maras. Andrew Scott – in RAF uniform, short-back-and-sides and ’tache – plays James Stagg, a brilliant Scottish meteorologist attached to the military during the war. Stagg arrives at the top-secret allied base of Southwick House in Hampshire stubbornly intent on telling allied Cmdr Dwight “Ike” Eisenhower, bullishly played by Brendan Fraser, that he has an outlier forecast of bad weather, which means D-day should be delayed from Eisenhower’s planned date of 5 June. This is to the rage of Col Irving P Krick (Chris Messina), the swaggeringly gung-ho American meteorologist who has always had Ike’s confidence until now. And if we were unsure about this character’s brash-Yank status, in his opening scene he literally shimmies and bops to the Andrews Sisters’ Boogie-Woogie Bugle Boy in the operations room to the uptight, thin-lipped astonishment of Stagg who, as overall commanding officer, tells the Americans to get that piano out of there. Continue reading...
The Guardian•Peter Bradshaw10 Sept
