12A, Selected Nationwide Release from 20 November 2009

A scene from Glorious 39 (Momentum Pictures, 2009)

STEPHEN POLIAKOFF has a well-deserved reputation as one of our finest television dramatists. His best work explores the dark secrets hidden at the heart of family life and the endlessly repeated lessons of our past history.

A new Poliakoff television work is an event. Glorious 39 is his first cinema feature in over a decade and a half, and carries weighty expectations that it simply does not satisfy. Set during the glorious summer of 1939, it purports to offer an unfamiliar perspective on a Britain poised for war.

Unfortunately, the film’s sinister conspiracy is more familiar than Poliakoff might care to admit, the plot doesn’t stand up to close scrutiny and the film is clumsily executed.

Credibility is not helped by the use of a redundant flashback structure as elderly brothers Walter (Christopher Lee) and Oliver (Corin Redgrave) are obliged to recall the fate of Anne Keyes (Romola Garai).

In the summer of 1939, Anne was a beautiful young actress, safe in the embrace of an aristocratic family led by her father, Sir Alexander Keyes (Bill Nighy). Talk of war is on everyone’s lips, and Anne’s friend Hector (David Tennant) is passionate in his belief that Churchill will become Prime Minister and that Britain has a duty to fight the evil of Nazism.

Hector’s sudden death from an apparent suicide is the first act in a story that places Anne at the heart of a conspiracy that strikes at the core of British values.

The problem with Glorious 39 is that it constantly betrays a remarkable lack of subtlety. The surprise twists in the story are so obvious that poor Anne must be the only one who cannot work them out in advance. The dialogue tends to nudge you in the ribs and the film’s conclusion is more bewildering than satisfying.

The film looks luscious with the production design and cinematography combining to create a shimmering vision of a lost England. Romola Garai is excellent as Anne as she journeys from unsuspecting innocent to unhinged victim. The real problem is that we expect much more from Poliakoff than second division Hitchcock.

Director: Stephen Poliakoff
Cast: Romola Garai, Bill Nighy, Julie Christie, Jeremy Northam, Christopher Lee, Hugh Bonneville, David Tennant
Screenwriter: Stephen Poliakoff
Certificate: 12A
Running time: 130 mins
Country: UK
Year: 2009

© Allan Hunter, 2009

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