Glorious 39

After a decade of making acclaimed and award-winning television dramas including Shooting the Past and Gideon's Daughter, writer-director Stephen Poliakoff returns to the cinema with an absorbing thriller set on the eve of the Second World War. The film centres on the upper-class Keyes family, determined to preserve their way of life in the midst of political uncertainty. Head of the family, Alexander (Bill Nighy) is an influential Conservative MP, and son Ralph (Eddie Redmayne) works at the Foreign Office. Adopted eldest daughter Anne (Romola Garai) is a budding actress, whose charmed life is disrupted when she stumbles upon secret recordings hidden in the outbuildings of her family home. Trying to uncover the source and significance of her discovery, she is drawn into a confusion of secrets and betrayal, the full horror of which is as shocking to the audience as it is to Anne. Working with a stellar British cast, including Julie Christie, David Tennant, Jeremy Northam, Juno Temple, Jenny Agutter and Hugh Bonneville, Poliakoff handles the shift in tone from carefree to menacing with great skill, capturing the full sense of threat and unease of this significant moment in British history.

Sandra Hebron