Pressure Review

A Riveting WWII Drama About the Forecast That Changed History

By: Marc Kozak

Pressure

A Riveting WWII Drama About the Forecast That Changed History

By: Marc Kozak

I can only imagine the pitch meetings for Pressure, in which director Anthony Maras likely had to start out by telling potential financiers that it would be a great idea to make a feature-length movie about a weather forecast. Even once you get a little more information – the weather forecast in question is the one that decided whether or not to delay or launch the pivotal Operation Overlord during World War II – it still doesn’t seem like a concept that could hold an audience’s interest for 100 minutes, especially when you consider the movie hardly covers the battle itself (probably a wise move; there’s no topping Saving Private Ryan).

In fact, Maras and screenwriter David Haig (who wrote the 2014 stage play from which this movie is adapted) focus almost the entirety of Pressure on the 72-hour period leading up to the attack, in which General Dwight D. Eisenhower must balance the desires of his attack-hungry military advisers against the warnings of one Captain James Stagg, a meticulous Scottish meteorologist who stood alone in advising that everyone should pump the brakes on the invasion. Despite the seemingly low-octane premise that mostly consists of men talking in wood-paneled rooms, Pressure is still a tense and captivating drama that is sure to please all of those dads (and dads at heart) who can’t get enough of stories from one of the most extraordinary periods in human history.

One of the main reasons the movie works is due to the performances of its many talented actors, particularly Andrew Scott as meteorologist James Stagg. Scott, who has made a career out of playing quiet yet intense characters, plays Stagg as an extremely serious man, supremely confident in his abilities and utterly aware of the high stakes of the situation. Despite the fact that his pregnant wife is about to give birth back home, he reports to duty with solemn pride, knowing that his skills could be needed to save lives. He is a bit grim and standoffish, but Scott does well to let us see that he is only stern to his colleagues because he is respecting the high stakes of the job; he’s a good man at heart and he doesn’t want thousands of troops to be left to die because of a rash decision.

" It's a tense and captivating drama that is sure to please all of those dads (and dads at heart) who can’t get enough of stories from one of the most extraordinary periods in human history. "

Still, he makes few friends from the moment he arrives at the command center at Southwick House, clashing immediately with Colonel Irving P. Krick (Chris Messina), a cowboy-flavored American weatherman who seems more concerned with telling Eisenhower whatever he wants to hear. There is a decent stretch of Scott and his small team of meteorologists arguing over charts, getting into some high-level explanations of storm fronts, and generally lamenting over the fact that they can’t really predict anything with complete accuracy within a few days.

Maras does his best to make this as interesting as possible by cranking up the melodrama. There are more than a few montages of the weather team working at the same frenzied intensity as traders on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange – background extras run around at full speed while sheets of paper fly everywhere amidst other men staring perplexedly at charts while phone calls are simultaneously answered with the urgency of a 911 call center, all while Volker Bertelmann’s orchestral score swirls as if accompanying a battle scene in a Marvel movie. It’s all a bit ridiculous but it also kind of works, giving a larger sense of scale to what the team was ultimately trying to accomplish: a simple weather report for the morning of June 5th, 1944.

At the center of the literal and figurative storm is Brendan Fraser as Dwight D. Eisenhower – not an obvious choice for the role and one that admittedly takes a little getting used to. Correctly or not, the name of Eisenhower evokes a gruff, intimidating military figure, certainly not someone like Fraser, who always seems like he’s seconds away from breaking into a big smile. Fraser’s natural warmth is a bit jarring at first, but eventually you can see what Maras is going for with his version of Eisenhower – a man pained by the weight of his every decision, close to collapse under the weight of his responsibility for the lives of every soldier on the beaches of Normandy. He is vulnerable and afraid even as he must project strength and confidence, and it’s in those vulnerable moments that the casting of Fraser makes perfect sense. We are witness to him sharing these feelings in private with his personal assistant Kay Summersby (Kerry Condon), but even when he’s among his men, that sense of helplessness and despair is written all over Fraser’s face. It may not be the most historically accurate portrayal, and some viewers may never really settle into Fraser’s performance, but it’s an interesting pivot at the very least.

Fraser’s casting also helps him stand out amongst the more typical, craggy old British military men under his command, including veteran actors like Damian Lewis, Robert Portal and Con O’Neill. These are men who are itching to get their men into battle, unwilling to believe that something as simple as the weather could possibly get in their way. They make no secret of putting immense pressure on Stagg so that he’ll give a positive weather report in order for the battle to commence, making Stagg an increasingly isolated figure in the camp. It’s a battle of science and statistics versus emotion and gut feeling, a struggle that feels familiar even in our current times.

By the time Stagg has to give his final report in order for Eisenhower to make the go or no-go call, the tension has reached pretty impressive heights. Even though we know what happened in real life, we are still holding our breaths, actively hoping that Stagg and Eisenhower make the correct decision, wanting to believe that they really are good, decent people as embodied by two very likable actors.

In many ways, Pressure is a bit of a throwback to the melodramatic style of historical dramas from the early 2000s. There is a comforting familiarity with the way the story is paced, the seriousness of the tone, the soaring musical cues, and even cinematographer Jamie D. Ramsay’s traditional yet effective camera work. Even if it doesn’t come close to the heights of WWII classics like Schindler's List or The Pianist, it still kind of feels like something made in that era, which is maybe the highest compliment I can give it.