Glorious 39 - Director: Stephen Poliakoff (2009)

I love Stephen Poliakoff. So far in a career of wildly varying films, TV dramas and other assorted output, he has not once disappointed me. Like David Mamet his theme remain the same, the subjects every changing, some brilliant , some sub-par but always, always fascinating.

The first time I ever saw something by Poliakoff was a repeat of 'Shooting the Past' on BBC2 years and years ago. I remember only catching the final episode but being enthralled by the mood, the feel of the piece. Poliakoff's characters are like figures in a landscape, their movement and speech always so deliberate and through them he voices his own words, his own moods and his own feelings.

'Glorious 39' is no exception to this. The film opens with a nice looking young man visiting two of his formidable relatives Walter and Oliver (played with gusto by Christoper Lee and Colin Redgrave) The young man wants to know what happened to one of his relatives - Anne Keyes whose picture is in his family album. Walter and Oliver are regal, poised but still disturbed by the question. There is a story here to be told, a family secret to be unearthed. They reveal the truth - of what happened in one summer of 1939 - the glorious 39 of the title.

Adopted eldest daughter Anne Keyes(Romola Garai) of the aristocratic Keyes family 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 which will all lead her to ultimately discover who she really is.

The Keyes family is a formidable creation: on paper a charming upper-class clan with its' fair share of dotty aunts and loving sisters and an absent-minded father who is nevertheless loving and caring (played with aplomb by Bill Nighy).

However what lies under the surface is a squirming web of lies, half-truths and some very cruel characters.

Although Glorious 39 is never as successful as it could (and most of that is largely due to the final half an hour or so where both the ending and the closing coda are fairly redundant and cheesy) , it is still one of the more exciting films to grace our screens this year.

Taking his cue from Hitchcock at his best but without really ever losing sight of what makes the film so enticingly Poliakoff, the director draws the viewer into the same state of confusion and paranoia that Anne finds herself in during the course of her investigation.

As the narrative twists and turns, the frames change meaning: the members of the Keyes family who seemed pleasant but slightly quirky become figures of menace. A scene in the second half of the film set during a party for the children of ambassadors is a thing of true horror with each dimly lit corridor, each room suggesting a new wave of horror.

As always, identity and history are key themes to Poliakoff. Both the wraparound story of Walter and Oliver narrating a family history and his ending frame fit into the overall arch of the themes he explored in 'Friends and Crocodile' , 'Joe's Palace' , 'The Lost Prince' and 'Capturing Mary'. His way of exploring Anne's awakening to the reality of the world is brutal: the character slowly losing the charmed life she has been surrounded with, only to realise she means nothing more than a pet that can easily be put down to the people around her. Her desperation, her anger, her confusion all feel all too real. Even the idyllic scene that calls to her at the end, almost like sirens trying to lure her to her doom , rely on her sense of who she is to make her falter. Luckily her resolve remains strong and Anne proves to be a survivor of the true sense.

The film is also very gorgeous to look at: the tones of summer and autumn are perfectly captured on camera: whether it be tea-parties or dinners or merely the gloom of London - each frame evokes a sense of the time and place we are meant to be in. Even in present day Walter and Oliver's flat - a prison that is there to keep time out - looks enticing and intriguing to the viewer.

The film also boasts a beautiful score, subtle and haunting , just like the music in most of the other Poliakoff productions. Without ever being too bombastic, the music underline the important scenes with melodies likely to remain in the audience's mind.

Ultimately 'Glorious 39' fails at the last hurdle. The last segment of the film lets the rest down badly and it unfortunately loses most of what Poliakoff has been aiming fro in terms of mood and story. It is not hard to see what Mr. Poliakoff was trying to do, but that unfortunately is no excuse for what remains a rather pedestrian way of doing it.

Even with the let-down of the last reel, the film still remain superior to most of its ilk. The well-written script (at least for three quarters of the film) , the beautifully lensed camerawork, the uniformly good action from a British cast of who's who, and a terrific score make 'Glorious 39' definitely worth watching. Just reel your expectations back in as the last hour starts to play out on the big screen.

'Glorious 39' is out in the UK later this year.