GLORIOUS 39 (REVIEW)

Sinister currents of a nation’s alternative history flow through Glorious 39 adding piquancy to an otherwise clumsy suspense story. Stephen Poliakoff’s first cinema feature in a decade and a half is handsome but the plot doesn’t withstand close scrutiny and the surprise twists are all too obvious. The film gains little from being told in a redundant flashback in which a cousin asks elderly brothers Walter (Christopher Lee) and Oliver (Corin Redgrave) what became of Anne Keyes (Romola Garai).

Thus we are transported back to the sultry summer of 1939 with Anne a promising young actress, safe in the warm embrace of a wealthy aristocratic family presided over by her father, prominent politician Sir Alexander Keyes (Bill Nighy) and formidable aunt Elizabeth (Julie Christie). The sudden death of a young friend is the first act in a story that makes Anne the spectacularly naive heroine at the heart of a ponderous tale pitched between a Hitchcock thriller and Rosemary’s Baby. Romola Garai is extremely good but the film is an elegant disappointment.

(Cert 12A; 125 mins)

VERDICT: 2/5