The movie 'Pressure' leans into the drama of high-stakes weather forecasts

Brendan Fraser plays Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower and Andrew Scott plays meteorologist James Stagg in the new film Pressure , about the tense lead-up to the D-Day invasion during World War II. Alex Bailey/Focus Features hide caption toggle caption Alex Bailey/Focus Features This story contains spoilers for the film Pressure . Meteorologists are rarely the heroes of major Hollywood movies. Never say never. The new film Pressure is a lightly fictionalized version of the actual lead-up to the D-Day invasion of France by Allied troops during World War II, and the crucial role of meteorologists in deciding when that battle would happen. And it stars some big names. Andrew Scott, most recently of Ripley fame , plays James Stagg, a Scottish meteorologist who is tasked with pulling together a D-Day weather forecast for Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower, played by Oscar-winner Brendan Fraser . Stagg is stressed out, to say the least. The movie's title alludes both to barometric pressure, and to the enormous responsibility that the D-Day planners felt, given that so many soldiers were sure to die in the assault on Normandy's beaches. The Allied commanders also knew that, if the invasion failed, the Germans would have the upper hand. There was a lot of pressure on meteorologists to get the forecast right, says James Taylor, the principal curator at the Imperial War Museums in the United Kingdom. …