Glorious 39 (Stephen Poliakoff, 2009)

When a heavyweight playwright directs, you can prepare to make allowances for the cinematic side, but the script really has to be watertight. Glorious 39 does the opposite, and it's infuriating. Romola Garai does fine as the adopted scion of a posh MP, growing hysterical about dark dealings in the summer of 1939 as the rumble of approaching war grows harder to ignore, and she's supported by a cast fit for the purpose.
But Poliakoff just doesn't have an adequate command of historical detail, in particular the feasibility of the appeasement conspiracy main plot, and this seems to unbalance the rest of the tone as well, which ends up as supernatural horror instead of the disturbing thriller he must have been aiming for. Narrative improbabilities pile up at an alarming rate and thus the political point, which seems to be about the evils of preserving the status quo at all costs, is lost in the pandemonium.

4/10