Even
by the standards of dictatorial regimes, the National Socialists were acutely
attuned to symbolism. As a result, the old Kaiser presented rather a problem
for them. There are a lot of things you could say about him, but nobody could
deny he was German. After the invasion of Holland, it became much easier for
the Third Reich to keep tabs on the remnant of the Second Reich, but there will
be other parties interested in Wilhelm II, leading to intrigue and deception in
David Leveaux’s The Exception (trailer here), which had its
American premiere at the 2017 Tribeca Film Festival.
Frankly,
Maj. Stefan Brandt was fortunate to avoid a firing squad when he balked at a
horrific assignment while serving in Poland. Considering he now carries his
disgrace like a white feather, it is arguably a blessing when he is ordered to
take command of the Kaiser’s security detail at his isolated Dutch estate. Of
course, he is not merely guarding the fallen monarch, he is also spying on him.
However, Mieke de Jong seems to have the same assignment with respect to
Brandt.
Ostensibly,
de Jong is the new chambermaid, but it is pretty clear she is a spy of some
sort, working with the local clergyman. She also happens to Jewish, which
raises the stakes even higher. In his current state of physical and emotional
pain, Brandt is particularly susceptible to her charms. He doesn’t even seem to
mind much when he starts to learn the truth about her, but it puts him in an
awkward spot when guests like Heinrich Himmler start dropping by. However, the
revelation of their apparently class-spanning affair leads to a bit of a thaw
with the Kaiser, who carried on plenty of his own scandalous affairs with
servant girls, back in the day.
The
circumstances of the Kaiser’s exile are mostly accurate, but screenwriter Simon
Burke’s adaptation of Alan Judd’s novel takes great liberties with the Kaiser’s
personality and speculates wildly as to what he might have done if given half a
chance. (Frankly, we almost expect to see Prince Edward and Wallis Simpson arrive
as houseguests.) Regardless, it is a situation of such deep intrigue, it seems
strange a Len Deighton or Jack Higgins never plumbed it for a wartime thriller
before now.
Go
ahead and insert your own Sound of Music joke
here, but it must be admitted Christopher Plummer is just an eerie dead-ringer for
Wilhelm II in his final years. He clearly enjoys playing the gruff on the
outside, soft on the inside militant blue blood. However, the real scoop coming
out of Exception is the fiercely
poised performance of Lily James, Disney’s live-action Cinderella, as the
sexually resourceful de Jong. She develops memorably heated but murky chemistry
with Jai Courtney’s Brandt. Considerably better than you might have heard, Courtney
brings a soul-sick gravitas to the film that makes all his recklessness somehow
believable.
