Meteorologists were central to D-Day. 'Pressure' tells the story of navigating uncertainty

Andrew Scott stars as James Stagg in Pressure . Alex Bailey/Focus Features hide caption toggle caption Alex Bailey/Focus Features Operation Overlord, the code name for the Allied invasion of Normandy in 1944, has long been an Anglo-American film event of epic proportions, from the 1962 CinemaScope extravaganza The Longest Day to Steven Spielberg's 1998 Saving Private Ryan . The new movie Pressure, Anthony Maras' screen adaptation of David Haig's acclaimed 2014 play, comes to the big screen in time for the 82nd anniversary of D-Day, carving out a place in the pantheon of films about the World War II liberation of Western Europe away from the action on the beaches. The film is a closely wound chamber drama charting stormy weather both meteorological and emotional, of the film's main protagonists. The Irish actor Andrew Scott deftly embodies James Stagg, the punctilious Scottish chief meteorologist. Stagg works opposite his military superior General Dwight D. Eisenhower, Supreme Commander of the Allied forces, played by a bullish and baronial Brendan Fraser somewhat at a remove from the pinched steely-eyed Ike seen on the newsreels of the time. Maras' film places these protagonists squarely at odds as they are introduced to one another a mere 72 hours from a proposed landing on the beaches of Normandy. Eisenhower's own weatherman, Irving Krick, played at an unnerving extroverted pitch by Chris Messina, is dead sure that the weather will be fine. …