General Dwight D. Eisenhower is supervising the biggest naval assault of all time. But in spite of all the muscle he’s bringing to Normandy, one element might spoil everything: the elements themselves. This war drama is based on a true story, and contains some war-related violence and some cursing.
How’s the weather?
That phrase is perhaps the best-known, most-hackneyed conversation starter ever. We discuss the weather with everyone, from friends halfway around the world to strangers in the coffee shop. Everyone talks about the weather—and often, we don’t much listen.
But sometimes, that innocuous question is a very serious one indeed.
It’s early June 1944, and World War II rages on. The Axis powers have suffered a series of reverses, but Nazi Germany is still a formidable power, holding much of Europe in its iron grip. The Allies, led by Major General Dwight D. Eisenhower, plot their invasion into Nazi-occupied France, codenamed “Operation Overlord.”
More than 150,000 troops have been mobilized for the operation. The Allies have flooded bases in Britain with a dizzying array of decoys and saturated intelligence channels with lies, hoping to convince the Nazis that the invasion will strike France’s Pas-de-Calais—not the Allies’ true target of Normandy.
The invasion will begin on June 5, 1944. D-Day.
The preparations for the invasion grind forward like an inexorable freight train. Only one thing might derail the operation: the unpredictable, notoriously stormy North Sea.
So when Eisenhower—Ike—asks, How’s the weather? he needs the right answer. It’s a matter of victory or defeat, of life or death.
Ike turns to a pair of meteorologists for the answer: Irving Krick is an amiable American who, with his rock-solid forecasts, helped the Allies sweep through North Africa. Eisenhower doesn’t know the prickly Brit, Group Captain James Stagg, at all. But according to Winston Churchill, the guy’s a weather genius.
If the two agree that the weather will be clear, D-Day should literally have smooth sailing. But that’s a mighty big “if.”
The weather cares not a whit for the Allies’ meticulously sculpted plans or its logistical nightmares. The weather does what weather does. And Stagg must interpret its capricious whims as best he can. Countless lives depend on it.
The movie Pressure is well named. Ike and his staff are under pressure to launch the invasion on time. Any deviation could mean weeks of delay—weeks in which the Germans will most certainly have time to learn the invasion’s real timing and target and prepare accordingly. As such, Stagg and Krick are under some pressure to give the invasion a green light. While a simple weather forecast might seem like an easy thing to deliver, Stagg and Krick must not only contend with the unpredictable English weather but with military egos and some significant biases—including their own.
But while some stormy arguments take place at Allied headquarters, there’s no question that everyone’s playing for the same team. Each character we see wants D-Day to be a success, even if they differ in how to make that success happen. Characters make mistakes here, and many can be abrasive. But no one seeks to undermine the operation’s viability.
Eisenhower, who’s ultimately responsible for the success or failure of Operation Overlord, must gather sometimes conflicting data from all corners and weave it into a coherent, actionable plan. And when the information available goes against his own plans, he’s willing and able to shift—knowing he’ll take the blame if he’s wrong. (Spoiler alert: As you may know, June 5 was not, ultimately, D-Day, suggesting Ike’s ability to change as needs dictate.)
Outside of Ike’s own duties, Stagg has perhaps the most daunting job in Pressure. Officially in charge of giving Ike an accurate weather forecast, Stagg is a demanding, sometimes unlikable boss—but it’s all in the service of getting the necessary information. And he must stick to his meteorological guns in the face of staggering pressure.
“If D-Day is cancelled, we will lose,” says British Field General Bernard Montgomery, who commanded Allied ground forces on D-Day. “Do you want to be personally responsible for losing this war?”
But Stagg, when he exacts the information and evidence he needs, does not cave. And that proved to be a very good thing. And when one of his colleagues gets his own weather report wrong, Stagg holds out an olive branch so that the two can work together.
A critical scene takes place around a church. It’s a Sunday morning, and most of the Allies’ top brass are at service, singing the classic hymn, “All Creatures of Our God and King,” while Stagg is outside, underneath a tree. The hymn references winds and clouds, which coincide with the weather itself turning. Is the scene suggesting a bit of divine providence? Perhaps. But, with Stagg outside the sanctuary while everyone else is inside it, it could also reinforce Stagg’s strict adherence to facts unmoored to faith or hope.
We hear Ike’s D-Day address to the Allied troops, which references prayer and concludes thus: “And let us all beseech the blessing of Almighty God on this great and noble undertaking.”
When Montgomery details all the preparations that the Allies have made for D-Day to Eisenhower, Ike tells him that we should then “pray for good weather.”
“The weather is irrelevant,” Monty insists. “We must go whatever the weather.”
Stagg is married, and we see him kiss his wife tenderly. Krick talks about meeting a famous and beautiful actress.
Two soldiers—apparently under the influence of alcohol—jokingly dance a jig together, hands and arms clasped as if in a waltz. The two eventually fall to the ground together, laughing. The scene, which takes place on the eve of D-Day, isn’t meant to convey any sort of same-sex attraction: It’s all about soldiers enjoying a last moment of levity before they risk their lives on the beaches of Normandy.
The movie opens months before D-Day, in the aftermath of the ill-fated warmup exercise “Exercise Tiger.” Eisenhower was in charge of this live-fire D-Day rehearsal, and we see Ike looking in horror at the casualties this “exercise” caused. One man floats, seriously injured, in surf lapping red with blood. Other bodies float in the water as well. In a later scene, the bodies of the dead line the beach. When recalling the scene, Ike admits that it haunts him. “When I close my eyes, all I can see is failure,” he says. (Historians estimate that perhaps nearly 1,000 American troops died in the exercise, felled by friendly fire and unexpected German torpedo attacks.)
The film whisks us out to the beaches of Normandy during D-Day itself. Dozens of soldiers fall as the result of gunfire or explosions. One man makes it to the top of a ridge and quickly shoots a few German soldiers—then hops in the foxhole in which they fought and clubs to death any survivors. (We see this scene from a distance, so blood is minimal. But the thrust of the man’s rifle is definitely suggestive of what we would see.)
The film also features some real-world war videos from the invasion, as well as some violent storm footage.
The scars from Germany’s attacks on Britain are obvious whenever anyone takes a car ride to or from Allied headquarters. Destroyed and damaged buildings are everywhere, and the Nazis continue to bomb the country. They strike a hospital where Stagg’s wife is about to give birth, and Stagg doesn’t know whether his wife and baby are alive or dead for much of the movie. (Eisenhower forces Stagg to stay at headquarters and refuses to let anyone else do a reconnaissance mission for him.) When Stagg is finally able to go to the hospital himself, we see evidence of the attack, and we hear people crying and screaming off camera.
When Eisenhower views the disastrous results of Exercise Tiger, it appears as though he nearly says the f-word (though he does not complete it). We do hear the s-word twice and a sprinkling of other profanities, including “a–,” “crap,” “d–n,” “h—” and the British profanity “bloody.” God’s name is misused five times, four of those with the word “d–n.” Jesus’ name is abused twice.
As mentioned, some soldiers waiting for D-Day appear to be a bit drunk. Eisenhower drinks what looks to be whiskey in a scene or two. He smokes heavily, too (in keeping with Eisenhower’s real-world reputation as a chain-smoker during the war). Other characters smoke cigarettes as well.
A soldier appears to vomit during the rough crossing from England to France. Several characters act rather rudely.
Kay Summersby, Eisenhower’s ever-present and ever-capable assistant, tells Stagg that he’s not quite like the sort of weatherman she imagined. Weathermen, she tells him, tend to have reputations of being rather boring.
“Weathermen, maybe,” Stagg says. “But how can the weather be boring?”
Weather is definitely not boring—not when it runs headlong into the biggest naval assault in history.
And turns out, these weathermen are pretty interesting, too.
Pressure takes us into an overlooked footnote in perhaps history’s most documented war—a footnote that had profound implications on that war’s final weeks and months. It reminds us that, in the midst of humanity’s mightiest endeavors, it’s sometimes the little details, the “boring” details, that make all the difference. It’s a good lesson for us, too.
Because the film spends little of its time on the battlefield, Pressure is a more navigable war movie than most. We don’t see the carnage that’s inherently part of martial conflict. The fights we see are more verbal than physical. And they themselves underline the grit and courage required to take a stand and stick to it. Stagg might not be risking his life in the same way that thousands of soldiers are, but he’s risking a lot—and he’s deeply aware of the people depending on him.
We do see some on-field action, and that violence can be jarring. Some language concerns help cement Pressure’s PG-13 rating. But for those interested in a drama about one of history’s most compelling moments, Pressure has a lot going for it.
Paul Asay has been part of the Plugged In staff since 2007, watching and reviewing roughly 15 quintillion movies and television shows. He’s written for a number of other publications, too, including Time, The Washington Post and Christianity Today. The author of several books, Paul loves to find spirituality in unexpected places, including popular entertainment, and he loves all things superhero. His vices include James Bond films, Mountain Dew and terrible B-grade movies. He’s married, has two children and a neurotic dog, runs marathons on occasion and hopes to someday own his own tuxedo. Feel free to follow him on Twitter @AsayPaul.
