Glorious 39

[Beate]

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The ViewLondon Review

Review by Matthew Turner
18/11/2009
Opens Friday 20 November 2009

Four out of Five stars
Running time: 125 mins

Hugely entertaining and impressively directed, Glorious 39 is a gripping pre-war mystery thriller with a suspenseful script and terrific performances from a great cast.

What's it all about?
Directed by Stephen Poliakoff, Glorious 39 is set in the summer of 1939 and stars Romola Garai as Anne, the adopted daughter of Conservative politician Alexander Keyes and his wife Maud (Jenny Agutter), who went on to have two children of their own (Eddie Redmayne and Juno Temple). When an outspoken MP friend of the family (David Tennant) dies in mysterious circumstances, Anne believes she's stumbled on evidence that points towards a government conspiracy when she uncovers secret recordings that were being stored at their family home by a sinister Home Office official (Jeremy Northam).

Anne reveals her findings to her father and her brother, who works at the Foreign Office, but when their enquiries come to nothing, she decides to investigate on her own and turns to her boyfriend (Charlie Cox) and an actor friend (Hugh Bonneville) for help.

The Good
Poliakoff's direction is excellent, ensuring that the film moves from carefree pre-war drama to tense, suspenseful thriller before you're really aware of it. This effect continues throughout the film as things become darker and darker, so that the climax feels very potboiler-ish, but Poliakoff gives the finale a feverish intensity that's genuinely shocking and works surprisingly well.

Romola Garai is terrific in the lead and handles the film's shifts in tone brilliantly, as befits her wannabe-actress character who suddenly becomes drawn into events she doesn't fully understand – to that end, there's a definite air of Hitchcock in both her performance and the script itself. There's also fantastic support from Nighy, Agutter, Redmayne and Temple, whilst Hugh Bonneville makes a strong impression with a likeable role as Gilbert.

The Great
Poliakoff orchestrates some incredibly suspenseful scenes, creating an extremely creepy atmosphere where Anne has no idea who to trust. He also delivers at least one scene that is both disturbing and genuinely horrific to watch – cat-lovers, in particular, should probably avert their eyes as soon as the vet scene begins.

Worth seeing?
In short, Glorious 39 is an impressively directed, thoroughly absorbing thriller with a superb script and terrific performances from the entire cast. Hitchcockian, horrific (in places) and highly recommended.

[dovetail]

Won a pair of tickets to tonight's screening at Odeon West End with Q and A with Bill Nighy, Romola Garai and Stephen Poliakoff!

However, only sent email at lunchtime and I don't have access to my emails at work. Found out when I got home at 7pm and the film was at 7.15pm.

Sigh. Would have loved to been there tonight.

[Beate]

First of all, a massive thanks to phunkygal who passed her tickets on to me when she realised she couldn't go herself! However, I had to blow out ejwrank who had offered me tickets to Me and Orson Welles earlier, for which I am truly sorry. I was really keen to see Bill Nighy though!

We got to the Odeon West End at around 6.20pm and received our tickets without any problems. We were too early to be let in so had a drink in the upstairs bar first where we were the only guests, then wandered downstairs again and sat down in the Ben & Jerry's area. I found a West End Extra paper there that said "bring this page to the Odeon West End tonight from 6.30pm and the first 25 readers to do so will win a free pair of tickets". When we were let in at shortly past 7pm it filled up very slowly though so I guess some people did miss a trick here, especially as the screening wasn't a 100% full.

We were allocated seats in the middle of row G which isn't where we would have liked to sit as it has no incline, and of course we had the world's tallest people in front. However, they proved to be good seats for the Q&A! The movie started at 7.40pm after a short introduction by a bodyless voice coming from somewhere over a microphone.

The film is beautifully shot, and the acting by the likes of Romola Garai, Bill Nighy and Jeremy Northam is terrific. The story was suspenseful and interesting with some shocking scenes, however not everything was satisfactorily explained in my opinion, but I think it was more to show the relationship of the family than the Nazi appeasement conspiracy.

By the time the film was over it was already 10 to 10, and we got a half hour Q&A with Bill Nighy, Romola Garai and the director Stephen Poliakoff, who can talk for England and slightly bored me. Bill Nighy however got full marks from us for swiftly and effectively dealing with an annoying woman heckler, and the OH is now deliriously happy, as he got his picture taken outside with him (unfortunately only on my camera phone, didn't think of taking my camera along, argh!). THe OH now proclaims him to be the best actor of all time, LOL. He really is a very very nice man, he was just standing outside in a relaxed manner, talking to fans, posing for pictures, giving autographs (he signed my ticket), then calmly walking off with the others into the nearest pub. Lovely man.

7.5/10 for the film and 10/10 for Bill Nighy!