Movie Review: Pressure

 

Michael's Movie Grade: A- 

A wonderful WW2 drama. 

While there have been quite a few movies about D-Day, Pressure stands out as unique among them. That is because this film does not tell the story of the young men fighting. Rather it tells about the planning that went on before D-Day could happen. Doing this it focuses on an element of D-Day that most of us have never thought of before, the weather. When reading a history book, the idea of how the weather was such a deciding factor into this attack may not enter many of our minds. Because of this, the movie does what any film based off a famous historical event should do. This is to make us think about a part of history we are familiar with in a new light. I certainly did that here and for that I am grateful. 

Though Brendan Fraser is getting the most praise for his performance as Dwight D. Eisenhower is getting the most praise for his performance, this film has a fantastic cast all around. Andrew Scott as meteorologist James Stagg is very compelling and in one scene, he fully breaks your heart. Kerry Condon as Eisenhower's right-hand woman also deserves to be called out for her great performance. In this movie, you forget that you are looking at actors and feel like you are watching real history. 

Yet the real star of this movie is the writing. Director Anthony Maras (Hotel Mumbai) and David Haig (who wrote the stage play this was based on (and played Stagg in the play version)) crafted a wonderful script. This is a very dialogue heavy film, so if the script fell short the whole movie would fail. Luckily the script works marvelously. The dialogue is so good and compelling that you hardly think about how this war movie has so little action in it. The script also allows each of our major characters a chance to shine without ever distracting from the real story the movie is about. 

I know this may seem like a strange compliant, but I found the use of archival real war footage to be distracting. There was so much of a visual contrast between this footage and the rest of the movie, that it took me out of the film. It reminded me that the rest of the film was a movie and not real footage of the actual people, something I was able to forget about for most of the movie. 

All in all, this is an excellent film and a must watch for any interested in WW2 or simply a very well written and acted film.