“It’s this incredible valentine to spy stories and how they have a grip on us”: Screenwriter Michelle Ashford on Operation Mincemeat

In this multi-layered stranger-than-fiction espionage thriller, storytelling itself is as much its central subject as the elaborate ruse a group of bureaucrats concocted to help the Allies win against the Germans in WWII.

Operation Mincemeat takes as its premise events as depicted in a book by Ben Macintyre, which that author in turn based on Ewen Montagu’s memoir and 1956 film The Man Who Never Was. To make matters even more meta, the idea for the ruse also came from a novel, read by Ian Fleming of all people, who before his James Bond penning days was himself an MI5 agent. In a nutshell, they sought to throw the Nazis off the scent of an invasion of Sicily by planting fake documents alluding to an invasion of Greece on a corpse, made to look as though he was a soldier who had crash-landed and drowned.

Bringing it to life is an all-star cast led by ultimate-stiff-upper-lip Colin Firth as intelligence officer Montagu opposite the ever-brilliant Matthew Macfayden as Charles Cholmondeley – the pair shifting between comedy-duo and adversarial competitors from moment to moment – then Kelly Macdonald as the astute Jean Leslie, who finds herself the object of both their affections. Johnny Flynn puts in yet another impressive turn, here as Fleming, Jason Isaacs is a fantastic admiral John Henry Godfrey, who was said to have inspired Bond spy boss M, and they are all steered by John Madden of Shakespeare in Love fame.

It’s an immaculately realised period film in the vein of Darkest Hour or Munich: The Edge of War where heroism is not a soldier’s battle on the frontline nor embodied by a lone maverick outwitting his opponents, but a rather displayed by those in the shadows in a dusty basement, working together as a team against the odds to change the course of history. It also cleverly draws out the role of women in such eras, who may have been shut out of boardrooms but nonetheless played pivotal roles behind the scenes. And it wonderfully celebrates both the joy of storytelling and our shared love of spy thrillers, as well as how getting creative can be just as powerful as wielding a gun, with a tone that undulates between humour and seriousness. Plus the underlying resonance of a film about competing narratives, smoke and mirrors and disinformation, with peace in Europe hanging in the balance, is difficult to ignore.

The Upcoming had a fascinating chat with screenwriter Michelle Ashford about adapting Macintyre’s book and working with director Madden, seeing an all-star cast bring her script to life from Firth to Macdonald, how the film is as much an ode to storytelling itself and the unexpected relevance of the story in light of recent events in Europe.

Sarah Bradbury

Operation Mincemeat is released nationwide on 15^th April 2022.

Watch the trailer for Operation Mincemeat here: