It’s hard to keep tension in movies where the audience knows the outcome. “Pressure” sidesteps that by implicitly acknowledging that you know what eventually happened on D-Day. The question that drives the film is how the weather affected that outcome, and what part it played in the battle that ensued. By keeping the focus squarely on that facet of storytelling, the script by Haig and Maras is able to pull off some clever tricks. There’s a moment here when I started to doubt my own retention of high school US history class lessons.
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Brendan Fraser as General Dwight D. Eisenhower.Focus Features/StudioCanal
As you know, I love movies about process. And the majority of “Pressure” is people doing their jobs and slinging the appropriate lingo. Yet the film is driven by a complex performance by Scott, who plays real-life Scottish meteorologist Group Captain James Stagg. He’s the audience stand-in, an honorable man who must leave his pregnant wife, Liz (Tamsin Topolski) to serve his country during a crucial moment in history. When the hospital Liz is giving birth in is bombed, Stagg has the added trauma of not knowing whether she survived.
Running counter to Stagg’s family worries is the strict, no-nonsense military personality of Brendan Fraser’s General Dwight D. “Ike” Eisenhower. Ike is caught between a rock and a hard place; the forces overseen by British commander Bernard Montgomery (Lewis) are prepared for what may be the turning point in this war, yet Eisenhower isn’t sure if the climate conditions are right to storm the beaches. Any miscalculation regarding wind or waves will cause the entire endeavor to collapse in horrific fashion.
Eisenhower already has a botched mission on his conscience, a catastrophic failure that occurred six weeks earlier. Plus, he has the added burden of a newcomer under his command whom he knows nothing about besides a sterling recommendation from Winston Churchill. Adding to Ike’s troubles is the vehement disagreement between his most trusted meteorologist, Irving Krick (Chris Messina from “Air”) and that newcomer, Stagg; Krick relies heavily on past patterns, while Stagg believes that the weather is too unpredictable to base predictions on history alone. Krick leans into his certainty, while Stagg frustrates everyone by refusing to commit to absolutes.
Damian Lewis as Marshall Bernard Montgomery.Focus Features/StudioCanal
Balancing out this boys’ club is Kerry Condon as Kay Summersby, Eisenhower’s right-hand woman. Every request from Stagg to meet with the general must go through her. She understands him better than anyone else, and her character is pulled between expressing genuine emotional concern for Stagg and understanding the hardened stance of her boss. Condon turns what could have been a thankless role into a memorable one.
Maras, who also edited the film, stages the D-Day invasion at the end of the movie. I understand why this was necessary, but I kind of wish he hadn’t. Comparisons to “Saving Private Ryan” are inevitable, and it’s the one time “Pressure” feels like a thousand other war movies we’ve seen before.
As for the actors, Scott is well-cast as a prickly, occasionally unlikable character who faces an uphill battle to prove himself. Messina is also very good as his equally set-in-his-ways adversary. And Lewis is suitably stuffy as Montgomery, a man who reportedly clashed with both Eisenhower and Churchill.
As Eisenhower, Fraser yells a lot, which appears to be a requirement of any actor who has played the role, from Robert Duvall to Tom Selleck. His scenes with Condon provide a slightly warmer window into his character, and when you look in Fraser’s eyes, you can see how subtly he telegraphs Ike’s uncertainty.
It’s a good performance, though I admit the casting still feels odd. I mean, this is the star of “Encino Man” playing a future President of the United States. Every time I saw him interacting with Scott, I wanted him to sing the opening line of Tears for Fears’ 1985 hit “Head Over Heels”: “I wanted to be with you alone/ And talk about the weather.”
Come to think of it, that lyric is a nice one-sentence interpretation of the plot of this entertaining historical drama.
★★★
PRESSURE
Directed by Anthony Maras. Written by Maras, David Haig. Based on Haig’s play. Starring Andrew Scott, Brendan Fraser, Kerry Condon, Chris Messina, Damian Lewis, Tamsin Topolski. At AMC Boston Common, Coolidge Corner, suburbs. 100 minutes. PG-13 (war violence, salty language befitting military men)
Odie Henderson is the Boston Globe’s film critic.
