A WARTIME THRILLER FOR EVERYONE’S INNER DAD

those who aren’t actual dads, tend to be undervalued pleasures; they pluck a certain satisfying, resonant chord, often without being particularly flashy. directed by Christian Schwochow and adapted from Robert Harris’ 2017 novel, is the ultimate dad movie: its setting is the 1938 Munich conference in which European leaders met with Hitler in an earnest, if naive, attempt to stave off war. That weaves around that event—involving two young men, one German and one English, who attempt a risky plot to stop Hitler—is largely fiction. Yet the made-up narrative melts seamlessly into the historical one. If the movie is handsome in an oak-paneled-office way, there’s life in it too. You feel there’s something at stake for the two young would-be heroes, as there is for the world.