Six Minutes to Midnight (2020)

Directed by: Andy Goddard | 99 minutes | drama, thriller | Actors: Judi Dench, Eddie Izzard, Jim Broadbent, Nigel Lindsay, Maria Dragus, Luisa-Céline Gaffron, Daria Wolf, Bianca Nawrath, Carla Juri, Franziska Brandmeier, Tijan Marei, Kevin Eldon, Toby Hadoke, Andrew Byron, Joe Bone

No matter how many films have been made about the Second World War, stories still pop up that show a new angle or highlight an unknown event. War epic ‘The Battle of the Scheldt’ (2020) is a good example, but ‘Six Minutes to Midnight’ (also from 2020) also fits in that list. The idea for this war drama with espionage elements came from Eddie Izzard, the gender-fluid comedian and actor who grew up in the southern England town of Bexhill-on-Sea, where she discovered the story while visiting a local museum. from Augusta Victoria College. In that boarding school right on the coast, about twenty German girls stayed during the 1930s; daughters and granddaughters of prominent Nazi officers. The official reading was that the girls had been sent to England to learn the language and British customs and that the school was part of a strategy to keep the bond between England and Germany warm. Izzard saw pictures of the girls and noticed that a swastika adorned their uniforms next to the Union Jack. Her interest in this fascinating piece of history in that insignificant British coastal town was piqued.

Together with Celyn Jones and Andy Goddard, Izzard wrote the screenplay for ‘Six Minutes to Midnight’, basically a nostalgic spy film set against the backdrop of Augusta-Victoria College. So this is not a reconstruction of true events, but a highly romanticized story in which murder, intrigue and a secret plot surrounding the girls of the boarding school are intertwined. Goddard, who directed several episodes of the successful, quintessentially British costume drama ‘Downton Abbey’, was appointed as director. Izzard plays the role of Mr. Miller, who comes to Augusta-Victoria College to apply for the teaching job. With his predecessor, Mr. Wheatley (Nigel Lindsay), things are not exactly rosy, although nothing is known about his fate. Headmistress Miss Rocholl (Judi Dench) isn’t exactly impressed by Miller’s resume, but she dares to do business with him when she discovers that his father was German and he also speaks the language. Miller soon notices that his new colleague Ilse (Carla Juri), who teaches the girls German and physical education, among other things, is exposing the students to Nazi propaganda and ‘Sieg Heil’ sessions. But he also has a double agenda: he works for the British Secret Service and has been tasked with finding out what is going on at the school and what happened to Wheatley. Meanwhile, tensions in Europe continue to build. With Germany about to invade Poland at any moment, a plan is secretly devised to evacuate the girls in the middle of the night to return them to their homeland.

The first thing you notice about ‘Six Minutes to Midnight’ are the style and atmospheric images that exude a warm feeling of nostalgia. That is exactly the atmosphere this story calls for. It’s a shame that the film is a bit dull. This is not due to the fine cast, by the way, with in addition to Izzard and Dench (who gets very little to do here), also the always nice Jim Broadbent in a modest role as the friendly bus driver Charlie and James D’Arcy, who steal the show. as the arrogant police officer Drey. No, it’s the story itself that keeps the viewer from getting carried away. Nowhere does one go into depth; the events pass by too quickly, characters and their backgrounds and motives remain great mysteries. The German girls, in particular, are not doing well in terms of character building and development. We also remain in the dark about Miss Ilse; as if the creators aren’t really interested in the German characters. And the viewer therefore remains indifferent. While the very fact that so shortly before the Second World War, at a time when anti-German sentiment was enormous, a Nazi-propagating elite school was visibly operating on the British coast, is the most fascinating aspect of this story, let the makers predominate a generic spy plot. Unfortunate!

‘Six Minutes to Midnight’ looks great thanks to the beautiful, nostalgic atmosphere and the fine cast who, despite the fact that they don’t have to show much of themselves, still manage to keep the attention. Where normally a hundred minutes is a good length for a spy movie like this, “Six Minutes to Midnight” might have benefited more from a longer run time, so that characters could have come to life more and the fascinating premise of the plot could have been further developed. be explored. There could have been so much more to this cast!