How did a corpse washing up on a beach help change the course of World War II?
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It was no ordinary corpse. And it was no random occurrence, but part of a carefully planned, high-risk British military intelligence operation aimed at deceiving the Nazis and saving thousands of lives.
Operation Mincemeat, directed by John Madden (Shakespeare in Love, The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel), tells the story of how this plan was conceived and executed and what it was put into action. And it shows us something of the men and women who were involved.
The film is set in 1943. The British government has promised the US government that the Allies will invade Sicily by June, but it's considered an obvious target the Nazis will be ready to defend.
The Twenty Committee - also known as the XX (double-cross) Committee - is charged with devising a way to trick Germany into believing the invasion will be of Greece, not Sicily. Cholmondeley's idea involving a dead body is chosen.
Lieutenant Commander Ewen Montagu (Colin Firth) and Charles Cholmondeley (Matthew Macfadyen), along with Lieutenant Commander Ian Fleming (Johnny Flynn) set the plan in motion.
They obtain the corpse of Glyndwr Michael, a vagrant who poisoned himself, and devise a false identity for him as Major William Martin, with a backstory, letters, a photo of his "fiancee" and, of course, the all-important fake invasion plans.
But there are romantic and personal issues at play. Both Montagu - whose family has moved to the US for safety - and Cholmondeley have feelings for widowed secretary Joan Leslie (Kelly MacDonald) - who posed for the photo of the "fiancee", Pam.
In exchange for an official favour, Cholmondeley, agrees to spy on Montagu, whose brother who is suspected of being a Communist and thus a security risk. And the possibility of the plan being leaked is always present.
This story about creating a story has interesting layers, since the film, in its combination of fact, dramatisation and conjecture, echoed the creation of "William Martin" and his purpose.
"I would say of what we have, that very largely it is true," director James Madden says, while acknowledging that "not every aspect of it is what we would accept as true and verifiable".
The inclusion of Ian Fleming was not fiction: the creator of James Bond was indeed part of the operation and there are sly allusions to what he will do in the future.
Although the centre of the story is the operation itself but Madden wanted to move the film beyond the "procedural" level and look at the relationships and personalities of the characters.
Operation Mincemeat is now in cinemas.