Fiction and Reality Have Fun in Espionage Period Drama "Operation: Mincemeat."

Operation: Mincemeat depicts a dramatized version of the declassified British Naval Intelligence plot to plant false Allied troop movements into Nazi hands, resulting in the Allied invasion of Sicily. The intriguing detail: Operation Mincemeat deploys a dead body, carefully decked in documents and mundane details, to wash up on the coast of Spain, and the papers to end up in Nazi hands. The film weaves the line between fiction and reality in various directions, commenting on the absurdity of the operation in tandem with the nature of adapting declassified documents into entertainment, the deception itself, and the inspiration for entertainment the operation directly influenced.

The first layer of interpretation of Operation: Mincemeat lies in the adaptation of the declassified documents from World War II into a work of nonfiction, resulting in the book “Operation Mincemeat: How a Dead Man and a Bizarre Plan Fooled the Nazis and Assured an Allied Victory,” by Ben MacIntyre. Even with firsthand documents and declassified details, MacIntyre’s work is still a secondhand compilation of actual events published more than 60 years after the implementation of Operation Mincemeat.

The next layer of diluting nonfiction with fiction is the adaptation of MacIntyre’s writing and research into a WWII narrative screenplay. All writing of fiction, plays, and screenplays rely on a formula of events to create interest and drive a story along. Multiple plotlines also help the story move ahead by adding interconnected layers of conflict. For instance, a love story makes a compelling B plot within a high-tension A plot. A screenplay based on the nonfiction writing and research of actual events will inevitably take liberties with the nuanced relationships and real conversations of past events. The picture may be taken at face value for superficial facts and figures. However, the details should be regarded as dramatized fanfiction of actual events: well-written, well-structured, but still fanfiction.

Then, there’s the plot of Operation Mincemeat itself. Preparing such a detailed mission, leaving not even chance itself to chance, makes Operation: Mincemeat and Operation: Mincemeat so intriguing. The use of a dead body to plat false intelligence required Naval intelligence to create the illusion of a real man and woman to sell the lies to Germany. A photo of a real woman working for the Admiralty was used in the operation, creating a bit of risky truth to the lies.

The operation is deceptive, blurring the lines between reality and fiction on multiple levels. First, in the film’s plot is the not-so-subtle allusion of Bill and Pam to the characters of Ewen and Jean, two characters central to the creation of Operation: Mincemeat, who stand in for the nonexistent scapegoats. Where Bill and Pam are not real people, and their romance is entirely fictionalized, the romance between Ewen and Jean can never be real, either.

Negotiating the balance of reality and fiction is the film’s narration, creating expository storytelling. The film feels as if it were a novel itself, unfolding plot points and delivering a limited point of view. Throughout the film, comments on writers and spy novels enhance the fictionalized quality of the film. Viewers unfamiliar with more intimate details alluded to throughout the film won’t recognize the added layer of reality and fiction blurring until the end of the film when Colin Firth’s character, Ewen, asks, “In God’s name Fleming, what are you writing?” Fleming replies, “Spy story.” The obviously-planted lines emphasize allusions to another excellent spy story, written by Ian Fleming: James Bond.

Throughout the film, Ian Fleming (played by Johnny Flynn) makes references to M, which was (apparently) Fleming’s nickname for Admiral Godfrey, referencing the title for the head of MI6 in the world of James Bond. Then there is also a trip to the Q Branch, which houses various pieces of gadgetry and electronic equipment alluding to the character of Q in Fleming’s novels and the subsequent films. While at Q Branch, Fleming picks up a watch, asking, “What does a watch do?” Turns out the watch, when tapped on the side, is a razor-sharp saw. Hidden in the details of Operation: Mincemeat is the real-life inspiration for the spy genre’s most excellent writer, who served in Naval Intelligence during WWII. While Operation: Mincemeat provided Fleming with the daring inspiration for the world’s greatest fictional spy, Operation: Mincemeat provides the dramatized true story behind that fiction.

Operation: Mincemeat is a well-crafted film from the screenplay to set dressing, costuming, acting, and editing. While entertaining and featuring two Mr. Darcys, Mr. Knightly, Mrs. Crawley, and Lucius Malfoy, to boot, the film is perhaps both too cliched as a WWII narrative and too detailed as based on a true story to hold the attention of general audiences. Fans of period dramas, espionage films, history, and war movies (sans battle sequences) will enjoy the film, as will any film student interested in studying adaptations, genre, or writing.