Let’s just get this out of the way from the jump. I very much doubt that any film or filmmaker is going to ever come close to giving us the D-Day invasion of France in any better detail or realism than Stephen Spielberg did with Saving Private Ryan. There have already been countless documentaries. There have been enough films on the subject to make just about anyone a “Hollywood” expert on what is likely the greatest military campaign in the history of warfare. The only way you’re going to get anyone’s attention or leave any kind of mark on the cinematic history of D-Day is to find an angle that no one else has found. Good luck with that… or maybe there is an aspect that hasn’t yet been mined. I didn’t think so before I saw director Anthony Maras’s latest film Pressure. The approach is so simple it’s almost crazy that it hasn’t been covered before. What is it everyone always complains about but no one ever does anything about? The weather. Perhaps nothing determines the outcome of a battle more. Just ask George Washington or Napoleon Bonaparte or maybe ask Dwight D. Eisenhower. Because when he was asked what the turning point of the D-Day invasion was he answered that we just had better weathermen than the German’s did. That’s what Pressure is all about.
We are 72 hours from D-Day which currently is scheduled for Monday June 5th, 1944. If that date sounds just a little off to you be patient. Andrew Scott plays Lt. James Stagg. He’s a British expert on meteorology. His wife is pregnant with their first child but he has been called away on a very secret meeting with Dwight Eisenhower who is The Supreme Commander of the Allied Forces. What he’s about to discover is that the Allies are just three days from embarking on the greatest expeditionary force in history… The invasion of Nazi-occupied France. Brendan Fraser plays Eisenhower. He has relied on his own meteorologist Irving Krick (Messina) throughout the war. Captain Krick’s forecasts have been reliable and have led him to many victories particularly in North Africa. But the British claim Stagg is the best there is and so Eisenhower puts him in charge of the team that have the responsibility of delivering a go/no go forecast for the offensive. The two instantly butt heads when Krick gives a clear skies go forecast while Stagg believes there is a strong front moving through the area that will bring the mother of all storms. As the film advances each of these men are engaged in a conflict that complicates the invasion and causing a bit of hostility within the ranks.
The title Pressure is an apt one and a complicated one. The word fairly describes the pressure of delivering this important forecast and the pressure on all of the moving pieces to make it work. Of course, it also describes the atmospheric pressure that is a vital tool in these forecasts. Stagg is under a ton of pressure to give the go order and Krick is applying more pressure with his own opinions. I don’t think I need to provide a spoiler alert to tell you which man is correct. We all know that D-Day didn’t happen on that Monday. When the storms do arrive Stagg is proven correct but he must now find a way to work with Krick and the rest of the team to determine if there is a small window before moonlight conditions and other factors make the invasion impossible for another two weeks. By then the Nazis will have seen through the clever misdirection’s and the element of surprise will be lost. The heart of the film happens to be not in the invasion but in the relationship between these men and their wish to proceed.
Brendan Fraser is a true surprise here. He’s lost under the performance and pulls off a stunningly powerful performance of a man who literally had the weight of the world on his shoulders. He does this without going over the top and trying to bravado his way through the role. He’s helped considerably in this task with Kerry Condon’s exceptional performance as Eisenhower’s trusted aid Kay Summersby. She has learned how to harness and focus Eisenhower’s strengths and weaknesses. She’s also instrumental as the person who finds ways to relieve some of the pressure from all of those around her. Damian Lewis plays Field Marshall Bernard “Monty” Montogomery. It’s his job to make sure the troops are ready for what is about to happen and provides more than a little of his own pressure on Stagg to give the go order. Of course, it goes down to the wire. I don’t know the facts enough to know for sure just how down to the wire it all went but trust Lewis to make it real, real or not. I loved him in Billions and he’s likely an underused resource here.
as for Stagg and Krick? You will find the two performances compelling. I happen to be a bit of a student of the weather. We had a boat on in Jersey when I was a kid and my father became quite an amateur meteorologist himself. He recorded barometric pressure and wind speeds and used his charts to figure out if the 2-hour trip to our boat was going to be a go or not each Summer weekend. I keep some records myself these days so it didn’t take much to pull me in here. But for the average person I think that Andrew Scott and Chris Messina will keep you engaged even if the data they talk about doesn’t… but it should. Scott delivers a wonderful monologue about the weather when someone notes that she finds weatherman boring. If the weather is your gig you need to get a copy of that quote and put it up in your office.
I’m no longer a child watching his father create his own little forecasts. But I live in Florida where we learn to keep a careful eye on the weather because failing to do so could be catastrophic. Here weather folks can be quite alarmists and fear sells more than facts. I’m going to put in a little pitch for one of our local weathermen. I follow local meteorologist Paul Dellegatto who I assume is a fellow paesano. He’s remarkably educational and delivers not only the most accurate forecasts but never plays up the barker angle. I suspect he’ll be checking out this film as well. So should you. I guess as a film critic I look at my job in the same way as the best weathermen. My motto has always been…”Get me the data. That’s what counts”.
