Pressure (Anthony Maras, 2026)

Sunny with a chance of rain 

Anthony Maras' Pressure (2026)-- based on a 2014 play by David Haig-- answers a question no one thought to ask before: can a riveting thriller be made out of weathermen? Not storm chasers (looking at you Twister); not disaster flicks involving climate change (You too Day After Tomorrow and Geostorm)-- I mean weathermen, folk who pore over isobaric maps and stare at thermometers and take windspeed readings. The science nerds.

Apparently the answer is yes if-- big if-- 1) We're talking Operation Overlord, 160,000 troops launched on 7,000 ships supported by 12,000 aircraft, arguably the largest seaborne invasion in history; and 2) Landing point's on the Normandy coast in France, at the center of one of the most unpredictable weather systems on the planet. 

Also helps that the pivotal figure in the film one James Stagg is played by Andrew Scott, who first made a splash playing an extravagantly sociopathic Jim Moriarty in Steven Moffat's Sherlock, (haven't had a chance to see him in Fleabag and the Ripley miniseries, but I hear good things). Scott plays the unlikeable genius type who eventually wins us over not through charm or wit but dogged commitment to the truth, basically facts as gathered by balloons lifting weather instruments and meteorological stations all around Europe. Heroic loner type, no real surprise or complexity here, but like Stagg himself, Scott commits to the bit with an intensity few other actors can muster. 

Opposite him stands Colonel Irving Krick (Chris Messina), a charismatic piano-playing music-loving American much loved by everyone. The moment Stagg walks in and shuts down the merriment you know we're in for a pitched battle between hero and jester a la The Dark Knight ('why so serious?') or-- to cite a superior example-- between corrupt charismatic cop Hank Quinlan (Orson Welles) and self-righteous prig Miguel Vargas (Charlton Heston) in Touch of Evil ("An old lady on Main Street last night picked up a shoe. The shoe had a foot in it. We're going to make you pay for that mess")

But Krick is basically a straw man; Stagg's real antagonist is General Dwight D Eisenhower, the Supreme Allied Commander of the Expeditionary Force in Europe-- it's Eisenhower not Krick who has power to set Overlord in motion and Eisenhower not Krick who Stagg must convince that June 5, 1944, the day Eisenhower himself chose, would be disastrous for an invasion. 

That's the stakes as Haig set them up and Maras resolves in a compact hundred and forty minutes, good ole fashioned Hollywood storytelling at its best-- or good ole fashioned storytelling period, as British production outfit Working Title makes the most out of a modest budget, using archival footage to flesh out the battle sequences, allowing the drama to unfold in hastily converted map rooms and jerry-rigged conference halls. Maras doesn't resort to much visual style beyond the handsome architectural details of Mentmore Towers and chalk cliffsides of Seaford Head, as lit and shot by cinematographer Jamie D Ramsay-- tho I must mention a brief lyrical moment when a weather balloon plunges straight upward through the clouds into the bright airless blue till it bursts in a thousand little plastic shreds. This isn't a comprehensive account of Overlord but of a crucial sidebar, and fulfills that niche purpose effectively. 

Pause to note that Brendan Fraser, formerly of George of the Jungle and the Mummy movies, continues to work steadily trying to prove himself a dramatic heavyweight. Can't quite see him as Eisenhower (Robert Duvall gave perhaps the definitive performance) but he's physically large enough-- larger, actually-- for the part, and his bellow is suitably impressive. 

Maybe my favorite bit is what gives play and film a little added resonance: the struggle between conflicting viewpoints, one side insisting on the validity of records and consistency of weather systems, the other sending nervy feelers out in every direction, senses in a constant state of tension gazing listening updating, tasting wind currents and air pressures and average temperatures in an attempt to second guess an inscrutable foe. Glamorous forecaster with established track record ('I predicted the weather for Gone With the Wind!') vs. unglamorous data analyst-- who did Eisenhower listen to? And if a similar scenario played out again today, who would our present leaders listen to now?