172. Six Minutes To Midnight; movie review

 

 

SIX MINUTES TO MIDNIGHT

Cert 12A

99 mins

BBFC advice: Contains moderate violence, threat, bloody images

There was a school for the daughters of wealthy Nazis in England? And it only disbanded a week before the pronouncement of the Second World War?

Such a plot reminds me of the old TV quiz Call My Bluff and the word descriptions which were so far-fetched they had to be true.

So, yes, indeed, there was an Anglo-England school which had a swastika as part of the emblem on its badge.

Based at a manor house-style building at Bexhill-On-Sea, the school taught the teenagers discipline and deportment as well as conventional academic subjects.

However, as the war neared, it became obvious that they could not remain in England.

During Andy Goddard's movie, Eddie Izzard plays a new teacher at the school who is half-German but is actually a British spy.

He clods around the premises to see if there is anything which could be construed as contrary to the British war effort.

He discovers an elderly headteacher (Judi Dench) who is English but naively admires the Nazi regime and a young German teacher (Carla Juri) who turns out to be not all she seems.

Six Minutes To Midnight is Izzard's passion project - she grew up in Bexhill and the true story of the school has obviously sparked her creative juices.

But, while the film's concept is interesting and the backdrop is alluring, I am afraid its writing is clumsy and Izzard completely lacks either the stealth or panache the lead character demands.

Then there is the waste of Dench - her headmistress seems away with the fairies - and Jim Broadbent whose cameo is just plain odd.

But, even more importantly, its makers have made a cackhanded attempt to infuse a true story with overwrought drama.

Reasons to watch: Based on an interesting fact

Reasons to avoid: Clumsily told story embellishment

Laughs: None

Jumps: None

Vomit: None

Nudity: None

Overall rating: 4.5/10

Did you know? Among the real Anglo-German school’s class register included Isa von Bergen, daughter of Hitler’s envoy to the Vatican, Carl-Ludwig Diego von Bergen and Bettina von Ribbentrop, daughter of Hitler’s foreign minister Joachim von Ribbentrop, alongside the young women of other prominent Nazi sympathisers.

The final word. Eddie Izzard: "At a time when a number of right-wing politicians around the world are saying separate, nationalism, pull back, let's go back to when everyone hated each other, who do you want to hate, well, come up with something to feed the hate with. I'm saying now, the rest of us are saying, no, make more connections, even stronger connections than before." NPR

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