Lieutenant Commander Ewen Montagu (Colin Firth) and Flight Lieutenant Charles Cholmondeley (Matthew Macfadyen) develop a plan to plant false papers on a corpse disguised as a fictitious British airman, Major William Martin, in the hopes German intelligence will intercept the fake documents. To make the deception more believable, Montagu, Cholmondeley, and their team create an entire false identity for Martin. Watching the meticulous process of developing that fabricated identity is both fascinating and revealing of the characters and of the team’s dynamic.

Firth and Macfadyen are excellent as the leaders of the team, but Kelly Macdonald and Penelope Wilton flesh out the storyline as Jean Leslie and Hester Legget respectively, the women recruited to provide support to the team. Both Macdonald and Wilton manage to steal many scenes as they reveal the strength of their characters and their importance to the development of the operation. The direction by John Madden (Shakespeare In Love, Best Exotic Marigold Hotel) is solid, although a few plot elements, such as romantic tensions between the team members, seem slightly forced at times. Otherwise, he keeps the story flowing at a good pace and there was enough suspense and tension to keep me absorbed in the film without overwhelming me. 

The film was shot in ArriRaw at 4.5K and mastered in 4K, and the DolbyVision presentation on Netflix has a pleasingly natural appearance. Scenes involving a submarine during a nighttime storm were challenging, but the breaking waves and driving rain looked crisp and well-defined even in the low light. Another particularly demanding scene has Montagu walking through pitch darkness with a lantern illuminating a circle of light around him. The picture remained solid and finely detailed as the nature of the light changed when it was reflected off the uneven ground, creating rapidily changing shadows. 

Interior shots often exhibit a sepia tone, providing a vintage look appropriate to the film’s setting of nearly a century ago. When the scenes shift to outdoors, the picture takes on a slightly cool, bluish hue. In a garden scene where intelligence officers, including Fleming, meet with Prime Minister Churchill, the collars of their crisply pressed white shirts are bathed in the pale blue light. This lighting gave their black wool coats and felt hats a slightly lighter hue, but there was exquisite detail in the stitching and fibers of the materials. 

From the opening suspenseful music mixed with thunderously crashing waves and howling wind, the sound design of Operation Mincemeat is engaging and active even though it’s presented in standard 5.1 audio. The stark clacking of typewriter keys is used as an effective device to introduce scenes, along with the dry, matter-of-fact delivery of the narration by actor/musician Johnny Flynn who plays Fleming. The score is atmospheric and involving, but music is also used to punctuate the onscreen action as when Montagu and his team visit a Soho club and the jazzy tones of a saxophone and a moody piano fill the air. A big band plays later in the scene and is limited primarily to the front speakers, but the sounds of indistinct conversations emanate subtly from the surrounds, creating an effective sense of envelopment.

I was pleasantly surprised by Operation Mincemeat. The picture and sound aren’t quite reference quality but they are still very good, and combined with the film’s compelling narrative, make this one of Netflix’s better recent releases.