Pressure (PG)
Directed by Anthony Maras
★★★★☆

PRESSURE recounts the untold true story of D-Day, and the crucial role meteorologists played in the landings, in this nail-biting race-against-time drama which shows there are still important tales about the war to be brought to the screen. 

It unfolds in the 72 hours before D-Day which was originally scheduled for 0630 on June 5 1944. Group Captain James Stagg (Andrew Scott) was brought in to head the British and US weather forecasting teams at Allied HQ in Hampshire to advise General Dwight D Eisenhower (Brandan Fraser) on whether or not to go ahead with the invasion. But the Scot found himself at loggerheads with Captain Irving P Krick (Chris Messina), his US counterpart, whom Eisenhower trusted implicitly. 

It is based on David Haig’s 2014 stage play Pressure, which he has adapted for the big screen with Anthony Maras, who also directed and edited the film. Never have weather maps and meteorological data proved so thrilling and riveting.   

Eisenhower’s decision to launch the largest seaborne amphibious invasion in history hinged on the advice from his meteorological teams. Stagg forecast hideous conditions while Krick who used analogue techniques, comparing the weather on the same day in past years, claimed it was going to be sunny and clear. What ensues is an intense battle of wills and heated debates against a ticking clock. As Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery (a phenomenal Damian Lewis) asks Stagg: “Do you want to be personally responsible for losing this war?” 

It was make or break and Eisenhower was plagued by the failure of Exercise Tiger, a dress rehearsal for D-Day in which hundreds of young men died, depicted at the start of the film in a poignant sea of red lapping onto a beach filled with bodies. A wrong decision meant more deaths in Normandy, but if successful this was the start of operation “Overlord” which opened the long awaited second front against Germany and would relieve pressure on the Soviet Union in the east. 

Pressure is driven by an extraordinary, quietly powerful and contained performance from Scott opposite an impressive and commanding Fraser. Kerry Condon is outstanding as Eisenhower’s trusted aide. 

Despite knowing the outcome you are kept on tenterhooks as the pressure both weatherwise and in the war room is dialled up. Interestingly Sir Winston Churchill does not appear in this drama. He is only mentioned in passing.  

Thought-provoking yet nerve-wracking, you will see meteorologists in a new light.

In cinemas now