Review of Glorious 39 (2009) by Richard H — 06 Jan 2010

Inside Glorious 39, two films are fighting to get out ? a pre-war thriller and a psychological drama about the isolation of adoption. Alas, the two ideas sit together uncomfortably and get in the way of the many other intriguing ideas on display.

Director Stephen Poliakoff returns to the cinema for the first time since Food of Love (1997) ? The Tribe (1998) was made for cinema but failed to secure a distributor, premiering instead on BBC2 ? with this look at the lengths a wealthy, connected family's will go to in order to retain their traditional lifestyle in the face of war and what happens when some members of the family dissent.

During that last peaceful summer before the onset of World War Two, Anne (Romola Garai), Ralph (Eddie Redmayne) and Celia (Juno Temple) prepare a garden party for their MP father, Sir Alexander Keyes (Bill Nighy). Among the guests is the sinister Mr Balcombe (Jeremy Northam) who, over dinner, challenges the anti-appeasement views of another MP, Hector Haldane (David Tennant). The mood is damaged by the discussion and Anne, who unlike her brother and sister is adopted, finds herself considering the possibility of war for the first time.

The morning after the party, Anne stumbles on a pile of gramophone records stored in her father's barn by Mr Balcombe. She plays them, expecting foxtrots but instead finds them to be recordings of secret meetings about plans to keep Britain out of a war with Germany despite the government's change in policy away from appeasement. Only days later, Haldane is dead, apparently by suicide.

Anne soon finds herself the target of a conspiracy to silence the anti-appeasement movement and every person to whom she turns for help ends up dead. As the net closes on her, so her family grows more remote and she begins to suspect they may know more about the plot than they have let on.

As a thriller, there are many aspects of the story that work very well. Anne is quickly isolated by the other characters. She is revealed to be adopted and a part-time actress. Her heritage and profession are used to suggest her unreliability to other characters. This should contrast neatly with her rising paranoia that her family are untrustworthy but in the final act, the two concepts fight for screen time and stop making sense, nor are either satisfactorily concluded.

Added to this frustration is an unnecessary modern framing device. In the present, a young man seeks to trace Anne through the last two remaining members of the Keyes family, her cousins Walter (Christopher Lee) and Oliver (Corin Redgrave). There is a twist to this section but it is telegraphed from the moment he begins speaking to the two old men. Consequently, these sequences only serve to explain how the conspiracy came to be directed at Anne, something that should have been done in the historical storyline.

The interesting idea of making Anne an adoptee is handled unevenly. Early on, it is played down and she is clearly unconcerned by her background. However, in the final act it is this fact that divides her from her family and consumes the scenes between them all. The development does not quite sit right with the initial presentation.

Despite these faults, the stellar cast turn in admirable performances. Nighy, in particular, is sublime as the empathic Keyes. Only Northam disappoints and this because he is required to menace through all his scenes, reducing him to a pantomime villain.

There are also some marvellous visuals. The Norfollk scenery makes a beautiful backdrop to much of the film and the shocking sequence at the vet surgery where, on the eve of war, scores of suburban Britons queue up to euthanise their pets makes a brilliantly tense atmosphere for a scene involving a clandestine meeting that goes fatally wrong.

On many levels, Glorious 39 is enjoyable. However, its failure to decide what kind of film it wants to be prevents it from providing appropriate resolutions and, in the end, it left as a confusing and slightly daft period drama. A missed opportunity.