Joe Wright’s 2017 Gary Oldman starrer Darkest Hour told of the lead-up to the Dunkirk evacuation from then-Prime Minister Winston Churchill’s point-of-view. Christopher Nolan’s Dunkirk, released the same year, took to the land, sea, and sky to offer a thrilling tripartite perspective on the D-Day landings as they happened. And now, rounding out an unexpected — and technically unrelated — trilogy, Anthony Maras’ (Hotel Mumbai) ticking clock thriller Pressure is about to take us inside the pivotal 72 hours that preceded Operation Overlord’s commencement. Starring Brendan Fraser as General Dwight D. Eisenhower and Andrew Scott as Captain James Stagg, the two men on whose shoulders the decision to launch or call off the invasion ultimately rested, this one is very much Pressure by name and pressure by nature. Just check out the trailer;
As the history books tell us, Group Captain James Stagg was a Met Office meteorologist who worked with the RAF during the Second World War. He was also *SPOILER ALERT* the man responsible for persuading General Dwight D. Eisenhower to change the date of the Normandy Landings right at the last minute, saving thousands of lives and changing the course of the war in the process. And as this trailer for Pressure shows us, doing that was… not easy. All consternated looks, tense exchanges in small rooms, and cross-cutting to bloodshed on the beaches of Normandy, Pressure’s trailer sets up a fraught battle of wills between Fraser’s Eisenhower and Scott’s Stagg. “The final decision on the timing of D-Day will be mine and mine alone,” barks Eisenhower. “The storms that I am talking about are real, and the wrath of nature is real,” Stagg claps back.
The official synopsis for the movie, elsewhere starring Kerry Condon, Damian Lewis, and Chris Messina, reads: “In the seventy two hours leading up to D-Day, all the pieces are in place except for one key element—the British weather. Britain’s chief meteorological officer James Stagg (Scott) is called upon to deliver the most consequential forecast in history, locking him into a tense standoff with the entire Allied leadership. The wrong conditions could devastate the largest ever seaborne invasion, while any delay risks German intelligence catching on. With only his trusted aide Captain Kay Summersby to confide in, and haunted by a catastrophic D-Day rehearsal, the final decision rests with Supreme Allied Commander Dwight D. Eisenhower. With only hours to go, the fate of the war and the lives of millions hang in the balance.”
We look forward to triple-billing Darkest Hour, Dunkirk, and Pressure when Maras’ movie launches — weather permitting — in UK cinemas on 29 May.