If you’ve been following Love Popcorn for a while then you might already know that biographical pictures are my most favourite genre of them all, learning about stories that might otherwise go unknown and unappreciated. Couple that with the calibre of war films that us Brits deliver – The Imitation Game, 1917 and The Reader to name but a few – and I knew that John Madden’s Operation Mincemeat was going to be right up my street.

With the Second World War dragging on and Hitler growing in power, Britain’s next target is Sicily. Weaken Italy and you take out one of Hitler’s strongest allies, turning the tide in the Allied Forces favour. Any military minded person or strategic thinker can see it. For those select few involved in ‘Operation Mincemeat’, their job was to fabricate a deception so intricately complex, yet plausible enough, to persuade the enemy to move their forces to Greece, allowing the Allied Forces to enact their blow on Sicily with minimal resistance and loss of life. This stranger-than-fiction deception, straight from the playbook of the Ian Fleming, was one of Britain’s great intelligence coups of WW2.

The stakes are set early on as we see Colin Firth’s Ewan Montagu, a Jewish intelligence officer, say goodbye to his family as they head to the relative safety of America. A necessary precaution – maybe a permanent one – in case of a Nazi invasion of Britain. Alongside Firth’s Montagu, we are introduced to Charles Cholmondeley (Matthew Macfadyen). Living in the shadow of his fallen war-hero brother and largely ignored by his grieving mother, Cholmondeley is a quiet and somewhat insecure RAF office who’s poor eyesight has left him grounded. Together, with the fate of the war at their fingertips, they are charged with making ‘Operation Mincemeat’ a success.

The plan is to dress a dead body – a homeless man named Glyndwr Michael who died by ingesting rat poison – in the garb of a high ranking British officer and drop him off into the waters of the coast of neutral Spain where, hopefully, official documents detailing the Allied Forces plan to invade Greece rather than Sicily will fall into the hands of Nazi spies and make their way up the German chain of command, prompting the Nazi’s to move their forces and leave Sicily with minimal defenses. To make the plan work, Montagu and Cholmondeley along with their team; Hester Leggett (Penelope Wilton), Jean Leslie (Kelly McDonald) and Ian Fleming (Johnny Flynn) must develop of backstory for their character – Royal Marine Major William Martin – so intricate and complex, complete with love letters, photos and general mementos that it will hold up under the scrutiny of the enemies spies.

It is here, in the creation of William Martin that the film is at its strongest, balancing urgency and fear with warmth and wit. As the small group begin to build Martin’s life they start to project onto him, their fears, regrets and desires becoming his. Under the direction of John Madden, Michelle Ashford’s script weaves emotion, suspense and drama – with a dash of humour – in perfect harmony and is well executed by its stellar cast.

Narrated by Flynn’s Ian Fleming, and with a fair few nods to the world he will later create in his James Bond novels, it is easy to get lost in this film and the absurdity of the plot, imagining the whole thing as some sort of origin story for 007 rather than a depiction of real and genuine events that changed the course of war but Operation Mincemeat drives it home to great effect with its final image – the gravestone of William Martin, and the epitaph later added commemorating the part that Glyndwr Michael played in the victory over Nazi Germany.

I don’t think it’s too big-headed to say that we Brits are rather good at war dramas and Operation Mincemeat is no exception. Yes, there may be one or two sub-plots that feel a little too much like ‘wallet litter’ but overall it was an excellent watch that, much like The Imitation Game did with Alan Turing, shone a light on the people who worked in the shadows, achieving things that we can only imagine in fiction.