Glorious 39 (2009)

48% of critics liked it
(23 reviews)
44% of users liked it
(1,868 ratings)

A woman makes a surprising discovery with dangerous consequences in this period suspense thriller, set in 1939. Anne Keyes (Romola Garai) is an attractive young woman who is enjoying modest success as a film actress; she's also the adopted daughter of Alexander Keyes (Bill Nighy), a career… More A woman makes a surprising discovery with dangerous consequences in this period suspense thriller, set in 1939. Anne Keyes (Romola Garai) is an attractive young woman who is enjoying modest success as a film actress; she's also the adopted daughter of Alexander Keyes (Bill Nighy), a career politician and member of Parliament. Anne still lives in the family home with her father, mother Maud (Jenny Agutter), budding diplomat brother Ralph (Eddie Redmayne) and socialite sister Celia (Juno Temple). One night, Hector (David Tennant), one of Alexander's friends, stops by for dinner and during a heated conversation makes no secret of his disapproval of prime minister Neville Chamberlain and his efforts to appease Adolph Hitler's Nazi regime. Another dinner guest, Balcombe (Jeremy Northam) doesn't care for what Hector has to say, and later that evening, Hector is found dead, an apparent suicide. Anne, however, begins to suspect foul play when she finds a set of phonograph records that document conversations of men discussing state intelligence secrets. When Anne ties to share this discovery with others, they're soon found dead, and she's no longer certain what she should do with these deadly secrets. Glorious 39 was an official selection at the 2009 Toronto International Film Festival. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

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Rating, Runtime: R, 2 hr. 19 min.
Directed By: Stephen Poliakoff
Genres: Drama, Romance, Mystery & Suspense

In Theaters: Nov 20, 2009 Wide
On DVD: Feb 15, 2011
Studio: E1 Entertainment

Critic Reviews

Brian Orndorf, BrianOrndorf.com
Despite a few convincing turns, the feature is disappointingly winded, eventually going off on a few needless tangents that derail the whole production.
Philip French, Observer [UK]
An enjoyable conspiracy thriller in the manner of John Frankenheimer's Seven Days in May.
David Edwards, Daily Mirror [UK]
Not glorious. Not good. Just plain old-fashioned duff.
Nicholas Barber, Independent on Sunday
Prestigious and serious-minded, but it's still nonsense.
Philip De Semlyen, Empire Magazine
Stupendous turn from Romola Garai in the lead role but, while this sets up intrigue and atmosphere well, the plot devices creak audibly towards the end.
Dave Calhoun, Time Out
A political yarn - sometimes creepy, sometimes daft - in the Hitchcockian vein.
Matt McNally, Film4
Poliakoff's flaccid script and indulgent cut undermines a beautifully shot thriller with an excellent cast and original central idea.
Wendy Ide, Times [UK]
For all its sumptuous production design, Steven Poliakoff's tale of glamorous toffs and treason is so laboured and slow that it's practically pensionable.
Xan Brooks, Guardian [UK]
A ripping, old-school conspiracy thriller.
Tim Robey, Daily Telegraph
A bizarrely tasteless pet-euthanasia subplot -- clumsy parallels with the Holocaust abound -- is merely the wackiest turn the wildly unconvincing script takes: it's well below Poliakoff's more intelligent TV work.
Sophie Ivan, Little White Lies
The increasingly camp air of menace is actually pretty enjoyable.
Simon Reynolds, Digital Spy
Trapped in a perilous zone between TV and cinema, this wartime conspiracy thriller ploughs through an improbable plot with all the urgency of a snail going through wet concrete.
Elliott Noble, Sky Movies
Unfortunately, Stephen Poliakoff's tale of wartime skulduggery should have stayed on paper. The sort you can flush. Tedious, overlong and laughably unconvincing, the only remarkable thing about it is Bill Nighy's performance. Specifically, how bad it is.
Matt Mueller, Total Film
Poliakoff's conspiracy thriller about Hitler-pleasers and appalling aristos comes with all the bucolic loveliness you'd expect. But its biggest boost comes from Garai, whose fragile, hypnotic turn should make the actress a gong contender.
Derek Malcolm, This is London
There's much to admire in the film, such as sequences of the often forgotten panic when family pets were systematically put down as war became inevitable, but there's quite a lot to argue about too.
Stella Papamichael, Radio Times
Poliakoff cleverly translates the mood of fear and uncertainty in Britain into a dark psychological maze that leads Anne to the edge of insanity.
Christopher Tookey, Daily Mail [UK]
As a director of child actors, Poliakoff is hopeless. Worst of all, he seems not to have seen many movie thrillers in the past 20 years, for the pacing is pedestrian and the camerawork static, more redolent of bad episodes of Midsomer Murders.
Leo Robson, Financial Times
Stephen Poliakoff performs his usual routine of conjuring an atmosphere of mystery and intrigue for the first hour and failing to fulfil it in the second.
Anthony Quinn, Independent
The cast is impressive - Julie Christie, Jenny Agutter, David Tennant, Hugh Bonneville, Christopher Lee - though more astonishing is why any of them were tempted into such tosh.
Allan Hunter, Daily Express
Romola Garai is extremely good but the film is an elegant disappointment.

Read all 20 critic reviews

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Featured Audience Ratings

Thomas J

This movie demonstrates the lengths some will go in the name of "what's best" for the country (whatever that country may be). Well acted but the pace is way too slow! The end was such a large dose of cheese, I feel to could constipate many!
jay n

Set in beautiful surroundings this conspiracy thriller has many fine moments but is a little long winded which lessens the considerable tension it manages to build at points. All the performances are good the two standouts being Romola Garai in the lead and Julie Christie who plays an… More
Set in beautiful surroundings this conspiracy thriller has many fine moments but is a little long winded which lessens the considerable tension it manages to build at points. All the performances are good the two standouts being Romola Garai in the lead and Julie Christie who plays an atypical role with silky malevolence.
Walter M

"Glorious 39" starts with Michael(Toby Regbo) interviewing Walter(Christopher Lee) and Oliver(Corin Redgrave), a pair of elderly relatives. Instead of inquiring about his grandmother, Celia(Juno Temple), he wants to know about her sister, Anne(Romola Garai), an actress who… More
"Glorious 39" starts with Michael(Toby Regbo) interviewing Walter(Christopher Lee) and Oliver(Corin Redgrave), a pair of elderly relatives. Instead of inquiring about his grandmother, Celia(Juno Temple), he wants to know about her sister, Anne(Romola Garai), an actress who disappeared. Before any questions can be answered, a song on the radio transports them all back to a summer evening in 1939 where Anne's father Alexander(Bill Nighy), a respected politician, holds court while Hector(David Tennant) hectors everybody about the state of Nazi Germany. Before long, politically sensitive material is discovered in the garage and Hector winds up dead, an apparent suicide. "Glorious 39" is a handsomely produced movie with a very good cast. That's not to mention the attention to detail, although one has to wonder if they had the technology to surreptitiously record conversations back then. While its lingering pace is not automatically a mark against it, the film is about 30 minutes too long. In fact, if not for the adult material and language, this could pass for a movie of the era which was also a time of great uncertainty, reflected in Anne's suspicions and sense of dislocation. Just remember that nothing is as ever simple as it first seems, nor was 'appeasement,' as Noam Chomsky points out elsewhere that England in 1938 was more worried about the threat posed by the Soviet Union than Nazi Germany.
Deb S

The film is set in Norfolk in the summer of 1939, on the eve of the outbreak of war. Our protagonist is Anne Keyes, an actress and adopted daughter of Sir Alexander Keyes (Bill Nighy), a wealthy and influential Conservative Member of Parliament. Anne, also known as Glorious… More
The film is set in Norfolk in the summer of 1939, on the eve of the outbreak of war. Our protagonist is Anne Keyes, an actress and adopted daughter of Sir Alexander Keyes (Bill Nighy), a wealthy and influential Conservative Member of Parliament. Anne, also known as Glorious accidentally stumbles upon evidence of a secret conspiracy of the upper-class English society desperate to appease Hitler, if only to preserve its own way of life at all costs. As the conspirators are ruthless people who have murdered at least two people who opposed their aims, Anne finds that her life under threat. Moreover, she is horrified to find that some members of her own family may be involved in this sinister plot. The conspiracy where everyone seems against her builds up subtly leading to an ever-present sense of menace and claustrophobic atmosphere.
David S

I do like Poliokoff's work. He seems to bring an unusual slant to everyday life and his characters are always slightly off-kilter. This is another fine example of film-making and although it's not up to the standards of 'Close My Eyes', 'Friends and… More
I do like Poliokoff's work. He seems to bring an unusual slant to everyday life and his characters are always slightly off-kilter. This is another fine example of film-making and although it's not up to the standards of 'Close My Eyes', 'Friends and Crocodiles' and 'Capturing Mary' it is still a gripping thriller with a sense of dread pervading the whole thing. Garai is brilliant in the lead but the whole cast also excell and if it wasn't for a weak ending that kind of undermines the whole point of the story this would be up there with his best work.
Lovable M

This is probably one of the better movies I've seen in a while (granted, I haven't seen that many movies recently). The script is less than ideal and I could have done without the animal euthanasia subplot and also the "Lifetime movie" ending, but overall it was… More
This is probably one of the better movies I've seen in a while (granted, I haven't seen that many movies recently). The script is less than ideal and I could have done without the animal euthanasia subplot and also the "Lifetime movie" ending, but overall it was pretty enjoyable.