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Six Minutes to Midnight(2021)
IFC Films Mar 26, 2021 | Limited
UK, Aug. 15, 1939: 17 days before WWII, an English teacher and his camera disappear from a coastal boarding school with 20 German teen girls. Miller gets the job six days later, secretly trying to find out what happened.
Releases
Original Release | Mar 26, 2021
Box Office
Results
$51,315
$132,500
$2,787,931
$2,947,678
Director & Top Cast
Technical Specifications
Aspect Ratio: 2.35 : 1
Other Details
Country of Origin: United Kingdom
Summaries
Plot Summary
- Shortly before the outbreak of World War II (Aug 15th, 1939), the Augusta-Victoria College is a finishing school for daughters of the Nazi elite, located in the English coastal town of Bexhill-on-Sea. The school is under surveillance by the British secret service and the English teacher Wheatley (Nigel Lindsay) is a government agent. Realising his cover has been blown (when he finds that a camera that he had hidden is now missing from its hiding place), he flees to town, but disappears before he can report to his handler, Colonel Smith (David Schofield). Another agent, Captain Thomas Miller (Eddie Izzard), who is half-German and speaks the language fluently, is sent to replace him. Miss Rocholl is the headmistress and hires Miller on a probationary period. Miller befriends the girls including Astrid (Maria Dragus), Gretel, Beatrix (Franziska Brandmeier), Sigrid (Luisa-Céline Gaffron), Paula (Bianca Nawrath) & Leta (Daria Wolf). Gretel is the clumsy one and is bullied by the other students. Rocholl is very protective of her girls. When the girls head to the beach for a swim, they find Wheatley's body washed into the shallows.Smith tells Miller that Germany wants to kidnap the girls as then they can have control over the Nazi High command. Miller witnesses that the girls listen to Nazi broadcasts on radio and swear allegiance to Hitler, in presence of Rocholl and Ilse. Rocholl sees Miller and later tells him that she will never let any harm come to the girlsMiller continues to look for clues in a German diplomat's office (when Ilse makes the girls and Rocholl visit the castle for a day out) and finds a list of all German spies in England. During a party at the castle, Miller overhears a German diplomat tell PT instructor Ilse Keller (Carla Juri), herself a former pupil, of plans to secretly repatriate the students to Germany the very next night. The diplomat also gives Keller a film containing list of all British agents in Germany, to carry with her back to Berlin. Miller rushes to town to tell Smith the news, but Keller follows him, shoots Smith and frames Miller for it. Now wanted for murder and unable to prove his credentials, Miller attempts to hide from the police.Despite disguising himself as a bandsman in a stolen uniform and joining a parade, he is caught and incarcerated in the local police cells, from which he is extracted by government agents Captain Drey (James D'Arcy) and Corporal Willis (Celyn Jones). Miller reveals his identity as a British agent to Drey, offering a microfilm stashed at the school as evidence of his role. They take the handcuffed Miller back to the school to recover the film, a copy of Keller's list of British spies in Germany. At the school, Drey is revealed to be a Nazi sympathizer (when he acts under Ilse's orders), but Miller overpowers him and goes on the run again. Gretel had heard Ilse and Drey discussing plans to extricate the girls that night. It is implied that the plan calls for all the girls to be shot dead, if they cannot be extricated on timeLocal bus driver Charlie (Jim Broadbent) sees him along the road, and drives him to his farm, where, believing his story (Miller says that he is a spy and that he has to stop Ilse exiting the country with the list of British spies in Germany), he uses a hacksaw to remove the cuffs. Miller finds a phone box miles from anywhere, and has just enough time to pass on the code phrase "Six Minutes to Midnight" (given to him by Smith before he was shot) to his superiors before Drey and Willis arrive. Miller, realizing that Willis is unaware of Drey's pro-Nazi sympathies, starts talking. Drey turns and shoots Willis as his cover has been blown; Miller runs for it, and Drey takes his time casually shooting at Miller before sighting for the kill. Before Drey can fire at Miller again, the dying Willis shoots his superior.Miller returns to the school, where headmistress Miss Rocholl (Dame Judi Dench) finds her charges all gone. She was not in the loop on the plan to extricate the girls that night. Miller tells her that Ilse will shoot the girls if her plans fails, to stop them from falling into British plans They have been led, some reluctantly (as the girls actually want to stay in England and don't identify with their German roots), by Keller to a clifftop where they form two lines to mark out a landing strip as the sun begins to set. A Luftwaffe Junkers Ju-52 arrives and the Madchen light their flares and hold them aloft, but a following RAF Spitfire forces the plane to turn away just as Miller and Rocholl pull up in Willis' car. Keller pulls a gun, intending to shoot all the girls, starting with rebellious student Gretel (Tijan Marei), but Miller, Rocholl and Gretel convince her not to; the girls run to Rocholl, and Keller surrenders to Miller.A few days later, Miller says goodbye to Rocholl in her office at the school, and the girls sing a parting chorus of "It's a Long Way to Tipperary". From a radio comes Neville Chamberlain's voice announcing that Britain is at war with Germany.
Storyline
- Summer 1939. Influential families in Nazi Germany have sent their daughters to a finishing school in an English seaside town to learn the language and be ambassadors for a future looking National Socialist. A teacher there sees what is coming and is trying to raise the alarm. But the authorities believe he is the problem. — Andy Evans East Sussex, South East England, August 15, 1939. Just days before World War II and the commencement of the hostilities, English teacher, Thomas Miller, arrives at Bexhill-on-Sea's Augusta Victoria College: a prestigious finishing school for the daughters of Germany's most influential, upper-class families. As Miller teaches Adolf Hitler 's league of Nazi girls, against the backdrop of the unaccountable disappearance of his predecessor, the new tutor finds himself playing with fire, trying to shed light on the mystery. However, with both countries on the brink of war, before long, British agents and undercover German spies enter the picture, and no one is safe. Now, the clock is ticking, and strange behaviours raise suspicions among colleagues. Can Miller keep the girls safe? — Nick Riganas