Pressure

 

Anthony Maras's second feature film is the solidly assured Pressure, written by Maras and writer/actor David Haig, based on Haig's stage play of the same name.

Pressure is set in 1944 at Allied command headquarters in England, where Gen. Dwight Eisenhower (a smart and layered Brendan Fraser) is planning an enormous land, air and sea invasion of Normandy beach in France three days later. At the recommendation of Winston Churchill, Eisenhower has summoned British meteorologist Group Captain Dr. James Stagg (another wonderful job by Andrew Scott) to join his staff and coordinate the weather forecasts for June 5.

A taciturn, humorless figure, Stagg immediately rubs Eisenhower's aide Lieutenant Kay Summersby (Kerry Condon) the wrong way and locks horn with Eisenhower's trusted meterologist, Colonel Irving Crick (Chris Messina), who looks to historical records to support command's expressed goals, assuming weather consistency year after year.

In contrast, Stagg's approach is to gather as much contemporary data as possible and then propose "go" or "no go" depending on those findings.

Crick is a likeable and fun-loving cuss; Stagg is Crick's antithesis and is as abrasive as a hair shirt. It is this bold dichotomy that is the picture's core conflict and lends meaning to the double entendre in the film's one-word title.

Maras and Haig have rendered a fresh story with crucial clarity about all that was at stake in WWII. No small feat considering how much audiences know about D-Day. Maras and Haig have re-scaled to a clash between science and intuition, that, nonetheless, would have lasting, global ramifications