Film review: Glorious 39

Published on Thursday 26 November 2009 19:40

GLORIOUS 39 (12A) ** DIRECTED BY: STEPHEN POLIAKOFF STARRING: ROMOLA GARAI, BILL NIGHY, HUGH BONNEVILLE, JULIE CHRISTIE, DAVID TENNANT

THE cream of British acting talent unite for acclaimed dramatist Stephen Poliakoff's return to the big screen after a decade making well-regarded TV dramas, such as Friends & Crocodiles and Gideon's Daughter. Set in the run-up to the Second World War, Glorious 39 plays like an old-fashioned thriller as Romola Garai uncovers a sinister and powerful conspiracy to silence the Churchill-led opposition to Neville Chamberlain's appeasement strategy. She plays Glorious, the adopted daughter of the close-knit Keyes family (led by the effortlessly smooth Bill Nighy), whose rich, privileged lifestyles seem increasingly under threat from all her snooping. Poliakoff is good at delivering fascinating period details that inject proceedings with a chilly atmosphere, and he gets the most out of his cast, with Garai, especially, selling us on some of the more melodramatic things that happen to her. Nevertheless, for all Poliakoff's supposed genius as a writer, the plot still turns on some fairly ludicrous coincidences and conveniently ignored inconsistencies, while the Christopher Lee-starring framing device that provides a way into the story feels rather trite by the end.