Eddie Izzard runs a lot in the new film, “Six Minutes to Midnight.”
The actor and comedianplays Thomas Miller, a spy posing as a teacher at a finishing school for girls in prewar Britain. But Miller spends less time in the classroom and more time fleeing from or running toward trouble. In this tense, low-key thriller — which made its U.S. premiere at San Jose’sCinequest on Cinejoyvirtual film festival andis the opening night film for the Sonoma International Film Festival this week — there is a certain amount of verisimilitude to these scenes that lends the film an extra dose of realism. (Fun fact: Izzard, in real life, has run in more than 130 marathons.)
The disappearance of another agent brings Miller to August-Victoria College, perched in bucolic isolation outside of Bexhill-on-Sea, on the Sussex coast. Overseen by demure headmistress Miss Rocholl, who is a bit imperious and very genteel but played by Judi Dench with a hint of steel glinting in her blue eyes, the school is a boarding establishment for the daughters of Nazi Party elite. It is 1939 and Britain and Germany still enjoy diplomatic relations, while Germany and the Soviet Union are still allied. The August-Victoria girls spend their days in lessons with Miller or Ilse Keller (Carla Juri), a cheerful young woman from their homeland, or trooping down to the seashore.
On the surface, at least, the biggest danger in this sleepy English burg would seem to be to the students themselves, who are bound to become international pawns should war break out while they are still in England. But almost from his first day on the job, Miller finds himself drawn into a conspiracy so shadowy that he senses more than sees. The son of an English father and German mother, his lineage helps him better fit in at the school, but also makes him a target of suspicion when bodies inevitably start dropping.
“Six Minutes to Midnight” is Izzard’s first feature screenplay, written with the film’s director, Andy Goddard, and actor Celyn Jones (cast in the film in the role of a police detective). It is based on an idea of Izzard and Jones’, but the germ started with Izzard, whose family comes from Bexhill,seeing a school patch for the real August-Victoria College (the place really did educate the children of highly placed Germans during the 1930s, such as SS head’s Heinrich Himmler’s goddaughter). The embroidered item contains the school name, a lion and a Union Jack on one corner and swastika opposite it.
这部电影让观众猜Miller. What is really happening and who is in on it? What of Charlie (Jim Broadbent), the bus driver who ferries the girls around and who seems a cheerful old man until confronted by an obstruction in the road? Can Miller even trust the police or Col.史密斯(大卫·斯科菲尔德),他的观点的contact with his superiors in London?
By the time the full scope of skulduggery comes into view, Miller is already on the run.
Izzard delivers an excellent all-around performance,never better than in these scenes, whether trying to hide in plain sight along Bexhill’s boardwalk or runningthrough the countryside to survive.
“Six Minutes to Midnight” is a suspenseful film, made that way less from its prewar setting and the violence it contains, than by one man running — racing, really — to stop a conspiracy and prevent a disaster.
M“Six Minutes to Midnight”:Thriller. Starring Eddie Izzard and Judi Dench. Directed by Andy Goddard. (PG-13. 99 minutes.) In select theaters Friday, March 26.