--- title: Six Minutes to Midnight Is an Unusually Gentle Spy Tale description: The espionage drama, starring Eddie Izzard and Judi Dench, seems guided by a desire to believe that young people’s views can be shaped and redirected for the better by simple kindness. canonical: https://time.com/5950223/six-minutes-to-midnight-review-eddie-izzard/ author: Stephanie Zacharek article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2021-03-26T19:39:46.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-05-11T04:55:18.648Z article:section: Entertainment og:title: Six Minutes to Midnight Is an Unusually Gentle Spy Tale og:description: The espionage drama stars Eddie Izzard and Judi Dench og:url: https://time.com/5950223/six-minutes-to-midnight-review-eddie-izzard/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt647cb2f222b13d2f/698a183db3fce330a10c7cba/SIXMINUTESTOMIDNIGHTStill2.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 6000 og:image:height: 3375 og:image:alt: Eddie Izzard and Judi Dench in 'Six Minutes to Midnight' og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Six Minutes to Midnight Is an Unusually Gentle Spy Tale twitter:description: The espionage drama stars Eddie Izzard and Judi Dench twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt647cb2f222b13d2f/698a183db3fce330a10c7cba/SIXMINUTESTOMIDNIGHTStill2.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # With _Six Minutes to Midnight,_ Eddie Izzard Spins an Unusually Gentle-Spirited Spy Tale > Sponsored content. 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Terms and conditions apply. * Savings buckets are a feature of Ally Bank's Savings Account. * No ATM fees from Ally Bank at Allpoint and Moneypass ATMs plus we reimburse for fees charged by other ATM owners nationwide up to $10 per statement cycle. * Early direct deposit offers eligible direct deposits up to two days sooner. * Spending buckets are a feature of Ally Bank's Spending Account.  by [Stephanie Zacharek](https://time.com/author/stephanie-zacharek/)  ## Stephanie Zacharek Film Critic Mar 26, 2021 7:39 PM UTC  Eddie Izzard and Judi Dench in 'Six Minutes to Midnight' Eddie Izzard and Judi Dench in 'Six Minutes to Midnight'Courtesy of IFC Films  by [Stephanie Zacharek](https://time.com/author/stephanie-zacharek/)  ## Stephanie Zacharek Film Critic Mar 26, 2021 7:39 PM UTC _Six Minutes to Midnight,_ an espionage drama directed by Andy Goddard and starring Eddie Izzard and Judi Dench, has a gentle spirit that you don’t expect from a period spy thriller—but then, there aren’t many spy thrillers with imperiled schoolgirls at their center. It’s August of 1939, and England is [on the brink of a war](https://time.com/5892932/a-call-to-spy-real-history/) whose scope it can’t yet imagine. Izzard plays a teacher, Thomas Miller, who takes a job at Augusta-Victoria College, a finishing school in the coastal town of Bexhill-on-Sea that’s sort of a cross-cultural experiment between England and Germany. The attendees are all young German women from “good” families, very possibly the daughters, nieces or goddaughters of Nazi officials. But they’re also just girls, teenagers, and the school’s headmistress, Miss Rocholl (Judi Dench), has a great deal invested in giving them a proper English education, as well as simply keeping them safe. Even with her countrymen becoming increasingly suspicious, with good reason, of all things German, Miss Rocholl insists on believing in the basic decency of her young charges. Yet the school is in turmoil. The school’s former English teacher has mysteriously disappeared; Miller is to be his replacement, and Miss Rocholl puts him through a frosty, unwelcoming interview before hiring him. Miss Rocholl’s right-hand woman, Ilse (Carla Juri), seems friendly enough, but there’s something secretive about her too. And after a mixup on a rainy night, Miller finds himself a murder suspect, on the run from the police, and embroiled in an espionage scheme. Just as the whole nation is on edge, this proper little school has also been rattled to its core.  Judi Dench in 'Six Minutes to Midnight' Courtesy of IFC Films _Six Minutes to Midnight_ was written by Goddard, Izzard and Celyn Jones, and its subject has special meaning for Izzard: Her family is from Bexhill-on-Sea, and she spent a great deal of time there as a child. (Izzard disclosed in December that [she is transgender](https://deadline.com/2020/12/eddie-izzard-now-using-she-her-pronouns-i-just-want-to-be-based-in-girl-mode-from-now-on-1234659898/) and uses she/her pronouns.) The Augusta-Victoria College was a real school, in operation from 1932 to 1939; the badges on the girls’ uniforms, reproduced in the movie, featured a lion rampant flanked by both a Union Jack and a swastika. The idea for _Six Minutes to Midnight_ emerged from Izzard’s fascination with the school. [_Read more reviews by Stephanie Zacharek_](https://time.com/author/stephanie-zacharek/) As compelling as the raw idea may be, the plot of _Six Minutes to Midnight_ could have been more finely tuned. In her devotion to her charges, Miss Rocholl is a bit too blind to the dangers they might pose to her own country; while some of the girls seem genuinely innocent and naïve, others have clearly been schooled in Nazi ideals. (A scene in which a character shocks the young women with a chilly lecture about anti-Semitism makes them seem more clueless than some earlier scenes have led us to believe.) But the movie is still quietly entertaining, and there’s something heartfelt about its approach—it seems guided by a desire to believe that young people’s views can be shaped and redirected for the better by simple kindness. Izzard, so dazzling as a live performer, is always fun to watch onscreen: As Miller, she has a vibrant, inquisitive energy. (In an early scene, Miller wins over his somewhat unwelcoming new students by teaching them a good old English music-hall song, “It’s a Long Way to Tipperary.”) And as shot by Chris Seager, the movie is gorgeous to look at, giving us seascapes and craggy cliffs with a dreamy, misty edge, as if they were somehow aware of our presence, viewing them from our vantage point some 60 years in the future. The sea and its surrounding rocks are features of the natural world that have borne witness to sights we might never have dreamed of, including neat rows of young German girls, in black bathing suits and white caps, heading out into the white-tipped waves for a swim. _Six Minutes to Midnight_ is a tribute to those real-life girls who, as guests from a land that would soon become a vicious enemy, represent a strange little intersection of English and German history—the human element behind symbols clashing on a badge. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/5950223/six-minutes-to-midnight-review-eddie-izzard/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/5950223/six-minutes-to-midnight-review-eddie-izzard/"},"headline":"With Six Minutes to Midnight, Eddie Izzard Spins an Unusually Gentle-Spirited Spy Tale","datePublished":"2021-03-26T19:39:46.000Z","dateModified":"2026-05-11T04:55:18.648Z","description":"The espionage drama, starring Eddie Izzard and Judi Dench, seems guided by a desire to believe that young people’s views can be shaped and redirected for the better by simple kindness","url":"https://time.com/5950223/six-minutes-to-midnight-review-eddie-izzard/","keywords":["movies","review"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt647cb2f222b13d2f/698a183db3fce330a10c7cba/SIXMINUTESTOMIDNIGHTStill2.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Stephanie Zacharek","jobTitle":"Film Critic","url":"https://time.com/author/stephanie-zacharek/"}],"articleSection":"Entertainment","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt647cb2f222b13d2f/698a183db3fce330a10c7cba/SIXMINUTESTOMIDNIGHTStill2.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"Eddie Izzard and Judi Dench in 'Six Minutes to Midnight'","caption":"Eddie Izzard and Judi Dench in 'Six Minutes to Midnight'","creditText":"Courtesy of IFC Films","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/entertainment/","name":"Entertainment"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/movies/","name":"movies"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/5950223/six-minutes-to-midnight-review-eddie-izzard/","name":"With Six Minutes to Midnight, Eddie Izzard Spins an Unusually Gentle-Spirited Spy Tale"}}]}] ```