"Pressure" - What do you know about pressure?

Does anybody actually like talking about the weather? I don't mean extreme weather like tornadoes or blizzards. I mean the kind of weather that dominates almost all small talk, especially after your older relatives run out of personal ailments to describe to you in excruciating detail. I'm sure you've been on a call with someone and they inevitably asked "How's the weather out there?" Ugh. Hearing that question makes me cringe the same way as when someone says "are we having fun yet?" as they walk past me in the hall at work. So...let's talk about Pressure, an entire movie centered on talking about the weather.

Ok, Pressure isn't just one hundred minutes about of a bunch of guys talking about the weather. It's one hundred minutes about a bunch of guys arguing about the weather. I realize that sounds as boring as a graduation ceremony or the movie Fences. But they aren't arguing about just any weather. They are arguing about the weather expected for Operation Overlord, a.k.a. D-Day. That's much better than listening to your uncle describe how the rain makes his knees hurt.

I've said in the past how much I appreciate movies that depict historical events, especially events I know nothing about. Pressure is one such movie - I had never heard that D-Day was postponed by one day, let alone that it was postponed due to weather forecasts. Dr. James Stagg (Andrew Scott) is tasked with leading a team that would gather weather data and provide a weather forecast for the invasion day to General Dwight D. Eisenhower (Brendan Fraser). This was no small responsibility, as the invasion included paratroopers, naval landings, and air cover - all of which could be led to catastrophe in bad enough conditions. Conditions like high waves, high wind, dense cloud cover. During a scene depicting a meeting between Stagg, Eisnehower, and several other high ranking military leaders, all will be made clear.

Like any historical drama film, there are a few liberties taken with the story to heighten the suspense. And a film about weather forecasting absolutely needs that thumb on the scale. It's the weather. The primary liberty is that Stagg is brought in to lead the team just seventy-two hours before the invasion. In the real world, he had been working with the team for months. But drama works best with a clock, and there isn't a better way to build drama than to bring in an outsider at the eleventh hour to save the day.

Also on the team is Irving Krick (Chris Messina) and he is the polar opposite of Stagg. Krick is a flashy American with a magnetic personality whom everyone likes. He believes the best way to forecast is to compare current conditions with historical data to predict what will happen. Conversely, Stagg is a brusque, no-nonsense Scotsman whom everyone finds to be disagreeable. He believes the best way to forecast is to collect as much data about current conditions as possible, analyze the data to predict what will happen, and to constantly remind everyone that the weather in Northern Europe doesn't give a crap what happened in the past. At one point, he will literally call Krick's methodology moronic, and Krick's indignation is so palpable you can almost taste it.

That's the beauty of this movie. It pits these two men against each other in a very short window of time, each of them trying to convince Eisenhower they are the smartest guy in the room. The suspense builds really well, particularly every time they show the sun shining as Stagg is adamantly stressing how poor the weather will be when it matters. And to top it off, there are some good supporting performances from Fraser, as well as Kerry Condon as Eisenhower’s aide, and Damian Lewis as British Field Marshall Bernard Montgomery. And that’s what I know about Pressure.

Rating: Don’t ask for any money back and, like always with these movies, go read more about history.