This week on Military Meteorology Theatre is Pressure (now on VOD platforms like Prime Video), about the battle between weathermen that occurred prior to the most crucial battle of World War II. Andrew Scott and Chris Messina play, respectively, real-life meteorologists James Stagg and Irving Krick, tasked with providing a forecast for the military strategists planning the Normandy Invasion. One of those strategists was a future U.S. President, General Dwight D. Eisenhower, here portrayed by Brendan Fraser, who’s officially a long, long way away from Encino Man. Using David Haig’s 2014 stage play of the same name as a springboard, director Anthony Maras — co-writing the screen adaptation with Haig — oversees one of the better Dad Movies in recent memory.
PRESSURE: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?
The Gist: Perhaps it goes without saying that the 72 hours preceding D-Day are fraught with tension. The gravitational heaviness of the upcoming Normandy Invasion was lost on no one, hence the title of the film. Still reeling from a disastrous trial run that resulted in hundreds of Allied deaths, Gen. Eisenhower (Fraser) has tentatively set June 5, 1944 as the big day. I know what you’re thinking: June 5? Wasn’t D-Day on– and here I apologize for interrupting your almost-spoiler, because there’s a lot of movie to go here still. Knowing this is bigger than the Beatles, Eisenhower amasses the sharpest minds to piece together history’s most complex ground invasion. Among those minds is James Stagg (Scott), the U.K.’s foremost weather whiz, to inform planners quite literally which way the wind will blow on that day.
Stagg is dropped at a command center in an old English manor, where a bustling roomful of folks use maps and pencils and compasses and telephones to compile weather data. A lot of them are stoopide Americains who don’t seem to be taking this seriously enough, and as the appointed boss of them all, Stagg really wants them to cut the horsecrap — and perhaps his prickly demeanor stems not just from the [INSERT MOVIE TITLE HERE] of the scenario, but the fact that he had to leave his incredibly pregnant wife (Tamsin Topolski) at home by herself. Her water could break at any moment, and Stagg soon comes to the conclusion that storm clouds won’t break on June 5. The [INSERT MOVIE TITLE THAT NOW HAS A DOUBLE MEANING HERE] in the air is changing. Dropping, ironically. Visibility will be poor and the waves will be big and the troops will be at serious risk. Everybody’s gonna be wet soon, it seems.
But one of those stoopide Americains disagrees vehemently. Irving Krick (Messina) has been Eisenhower’s trusted weather guy for a long time now; his wartime forecasts have saved lives. And Krick foresees sunny skies, a perfect day to whup the Nazis. Now, Eisenhower is the type of sees-it-all-in-black-and-white guy who wants some certainty, carn-sarn it, but Stagg fears no man, standing about eight inches shorter than the general and insisting that weather forecasts are never certain. However, Stagg also insists that Krick is cherrypicking data to support his thesis and telling everyone what they want to hear, ultimately afraid to rock the boat. Stagg has no such qualms, and bears the brunt of everyone’s criticism by going against the grain, earning him the empathetic ear of Eisenhower’s aide, Kay Summersby (Kerry Condon). He digs in. And he convinces Eisenhower, who bellows, “D-Day is delayed!” And so, on Sunday, June 5, Stagg wakes up after falling asleep at his desk and walks outside to a gloriously sunny day. Oh no. He peeks into the chapel at Eisenhower and their eyes meet. Everyone is singing hymns. Stagg wanders into a field by a tree and– BGRMMMMMGMRRRR. Thunder rumbles. Glory be.
What Movies Will It Remind You Of? Here’s your trivia for the day: One of Scott’s earliest acting roles was as “Soldier on the Beach” in Saving Private Ryan, so his career apparently has come full circle. Otherwise, I like to file Pressure under the Earnest Not Widely Told Stories of World War II, e.g., underrated Norwegian Netflix drama Narvik. I’d also rank this one a smidge higher than recent Dad Movie du jour Nuremberg.
Performance Worth Watching: The world, which absolutely has not forgotten George of the Jungle, seems poised to beef with Fraser’s casting as Eisenhower. I’ll defend him: he goes big when he needs to, but you always feel the weight of his concern for those he’s sending into battle, many to their doom. And I’ll praise Scott’s impressively wrought, buttoned-up performance. But it’s Condon who functions as the dramatic catalyst for both of her co-stars. As we saw in The Banshees of Inisherin and F1, she’s a remarkably assured and savvy presence, using her wide-open, expressive face and naturalistic line-readings to draw out the story’s crucial emotional components.
Sex And Skin: No time for that! There’s a WAR happening here!
Our Take: It’s surprisingly challenging to be cynical in the face of a film so expertly executed within the parameters of our expectations. It’s a little goofy, a little overblown, a little contrived, a little corny, and a lot watchable. Maras loads up Pressure with big speeches, dialogue showdowns, weather-data-gathering montages, characters searching for themselves among their own confident expertise and self-doubt, and Scott’s inevitable softspoken monologue about his passion and curiosity for the weather: “Why does the wind blow?” he wonders out loud to Kay, earning her support. Compare that to Krick’s braggadocio, exemplified by the spiel about how he provided the forecast for Hollywood producer David O. Selznick prior to the filming of the big Atlanta fire scene in Gone with the Wind: “Who hasn’t seen Gone with the Wind?” Yes: Whatta windbag.
Pressure follows the Dad Movie template so stringently, you can’t help but admire it. Maras keenly balances the weight of the macrodrama with the microdrama, presenting character and logistical details amidst the omnipresent stress of a monolithic deadline, never getting too broadstroked or bogged down in minutiae. Although some formulaic gestures feel a touch cheesy and unintentionally comical — e.g., Fraser’s pound-the-table antics, which never cease to entertain — the tone is finely modulated and the director manages to cover all the storytelling basics within a taut 100 minutes. The stirring finale offers no real surprises (especially if you stayed awake during history class) but nevertheless keeps us engaged, a testament to Maras’ ability to establish tension and provide release.
Our Call: The big battles have been covered, so the small ones get movie treatments now – and Pressure delivers some effectively stormy drama. STREAM IT.
John Serba is a freelance film critic from Grand Rapids, Michigan. Werner Herzog hugged him once.