Stephen Poliakoff returns to the cinema after a 10-year absence and, by jingo, he appears to have secured the ghost of John Buchan to be his chaperone. Glorious 39 is a ripping, old-school conspiracy thriller, played out in the fraught run-up to the second world war. It gives us dotty aunts and dodgy spies, showbiz starlets and imperilled young firebrands. There are secret documents in the outhouse and a previously overlooked reel of film footage in which a wild-eyed actor (Hugh Bonneville) points the way to a dark and terrible truth. Oh, and there's Romola Garai, too, scampering from country estate to London attic with Neville Chamberlain's appeasers snapping constantly at her heels. Poliakoff invites us to run along with her; to relish the ride and ignore those mounting implausibilities. Pause for breath, even for an instant, and you risk being tied in knots by the film's endless, gaudy contrivances.
Explore more on these topics