Somewhere in the sky above the Atlantic Ocean, a balloon pops, part of some routine fact finding. That balloon is there to predict the weather, necessary information for General Dwight D. Eisenhower (Brendan Fraser). The weather is important for him so that he can execute D-Day with success and liberate French territory from German troops. He already has a meteorologist, Irving Kirk (Chris Messina), but he also hires James Stagg (Andrew Scott). Irving believes that the weather for the original D-Day is sunny but James sees the possibility of storms. These three men, along with ‘Ike’ Eisenhower’s aide Kay Summersby (Kerry Condon), set egos aside to collaborate. The weather is, in Pressure, really important towards either an inevitable Allied victory or multiple Allied casualties.

This film comes from co-writer/director Anthony Maras, whose previous work includes films like Hotel Mumbai. This time around, he seems to be going for the exact opposite, depicting the good guys winning. The challenge here is to make historical fact exciting and relevant, and this film mostly succeeds there. It does by centering the film about James and giving him two plot arcs, one of them more relatable. That relatable plot arc has to do with this work keeping him away from his wife Liz (Tamsin Topolski). Liz is close to giving birth and needing care in a hospital that the Axis powers bombs. It’s been eighty years since WWII and Pressure shows that the bad guys bomb hospitals then and now.

The other plot arc that Maras gives James in Pressure is his conflicts with Ike’s current meteorology staff. He’s interested in that conflict, making this a drama where James becomes borderline unsympathetic. He mixes that drama though with documentary elements, like archive footage of soldiers getting battle ready. Some of that footage, admittedly, looks like your dad’s favourite Ken Burns documentary on PBS or Netflix. To Maras’ credit, the documentary elements work well especially when it ties it back to James’ struggles. There’s a lot of great B-roll here, like a tree swaying around Ike’s British headquarters or a bird opening its beak. Nature is often unaware of its temperament, and the transition from sunshine to a storm is excellent.

Southwick House is the place where James gives enough information for Ike to decide when D-Day happens. As a reminder, sending soldiers out on a storm will mean a catastrophic setback to the British and the Americans. But as Marshall Bernard Montgomery (Damian Lewis) warns, delaying or canceling the attack means defeat. Pressure does run the risk of belaboring the importance of something that we know is going to happen successfully. Characters obligatorily make those declarative statements, even yelling at each other. Supporting characters, mainly Lewis, do great accent work and show some what else they can do in their roles. All in all, this is a respectably fine film that one can watch with their fathers or friends who like their history.

Film lovers can watch Pressure in select Canadian theatres.