Although the film engages in the usual movie fictionalisations and simplifications, it is definitely Based on a True Story; the Battle of the Scheldt was crucial to the Western Allies' invasion of Germany, as victory gave them control of the approaches to the port of Antwerp, through which the armies advancing into Germany could be kept supplied. Nonetheless, this battle is relatively little-known in the rest of the world, which explains the English-language title of the film; in Holland, where the history remains better known, the movie's title is De Slag om de Schelde, meaning simply "The Battle of the Scheldt".
The three characters move through the events of the battle, but only come into contact with each other occasionally and briefly, leading to comparisons with the earlier Dunkirk from 2017, which has a similar structure. However, the similarity is fairly loose. The film had its premiere in Holland in December 2020, but its theatrical release was eventually postponed to June 2021 due to the COVID epidemic. It was subsequently released internationally on Netflix.
Tom Felton (Draco Malfoy from the Harry Potter films) appears as William's commanding officer, Captain Turner.
Tropes Appearing in This Film:
- Artistic License – Military:
- The Waco glider could hold up to thirteen troopers in addition to the pilots. William's glider seemingly only accommodates three. A glider with that few men onboard would at least have been carrying a jeep or an anti-tank gun.
- The actual battle for the Walcheren Causeway was almost nothing like what is shown in the film. While the Canadian Black Watch did mount a daytime attack with heavy losses straight down the causeway, the similarities end there. The Calgary Highlanders made two additional attacks, neither of which are depicted in the film, with massive artillery, mortar and machine gun support. The final attack by D Company on the morning of November 1st was done behind a creeping barrage. In the film events are compressed down to just one attack by the Canadians, and the final attack by British 52nd Lowland Division, which happened two days later.
- William goes missing on Schoewen on what must, by history, be September 17th. When he reaches the Canadian lines on should historically be October 31st (though the time period appears to have been compressed), we see no sign of him being debriefed, his story being verified, or anyone attempting to contact his unit. Instead, one of the Canadians (with no rank, mind you) tells him he'll get him a uniform. (Some of those things could have happened off-screen, but it all seems very casual.) Next thing you know Will is in a full Canadian uniform taking part in the attack over the causeway. To top it off, when the 52nd Lowland make their attack by boat, Will and a number of Canadians go with them.
- None of the actors playing infantry soldiers in the film know how to carry weapons as they were actually carried in 1944.
- Based on a True Story: The real Battle of the Scheldt was a complex, drawn-out affair, and the protagonists of the film are fictional. Nonetheless, the battle did happen, and did involve bloody fighting against entrenched German defenders, including an attack across that dam and amphibious attacks.
- Bittersweet Ending: The Allies win the battle, liberating the island and taking control of the approaches to Antwerp, which enables them to advance into Germany, while at least two of the film's protagonists survive. However, Teuntje's brother and several of her friends are dead, William's cocky idealism has taken a thorough battering and many of his friends are dead or maimed, and Marinus appears to be dead — and if he somehow survives, he hasn't got much to look forward to as a collaborator in liberated Holland.
- Break the Cutie: William starts the film as an inexperienced, overconfident, but not unlikable trainee, Teuntje is a well-meaning young civilian who is mostly trying to keep her head down and look after her family in an occupied country, and even Marinus, though a collaborator and a battle-scarred soldier, has preserved some of his illusions. In the course of the film, William discovers just how bad war can be, Teuntje loses her brother, sees some of his friends die, and is nearly raped, and Marinus, having been reassigned to what should be safe desk work, is forced to recognise just how brutally the Germans are acting towards his fellow-countrymen, who regard him with contempt, and ends up once more back in combat and eventually apparently mortally wounded. Not surprisingly, they all look at least close to breaking by the end.
- Chekhov's Skill: In his first scene, William is shown in training, and puts his glider into a roll — a dangerous manoeuvre for which his commanding officer chews him out. Nonetheless, he uses it to save his glider when it is damaged by enemy fire. It's the one time his brash overconfidence seems justified, though.
- Cold-Blooded Torture: The Germans are fully willing to use torture on members of the Resistance — especially the officer playing Torture Technician, who is a thoroughly Smug Snake about it.
- Defiant Stone Throw: Played with and subverted. When the Germans are withdrawing from the town early in the film, an angry and defiant Dirk (Teuntje's brother) throws a rock at one of their trucks. This has disproportionate consequences, as it breaks the windscreen and stuns the driver, and the truck veers off the road and into some of the marching infantry; it later emerges that three of the Germans were killed. Dirk initially escapes the angry Germans, but when they return to the town shortly afterwards, they set out to hunt him down, threatening to execute hostages if he doesn't surrender. The initial minor act of defiance ultimately costs Dirk his life and leads to the capture and execution of several other Resistance members, and doesn't actually impress anyone much.
- Didn't Think This Through: The three British paratroopers who, for whatever reason, choose to give up rather than carry on. Their only chance of survival now is to disappear forever with no hope of ever going home. If they're captured by the Germans, they'll be sent to a POW camp. If they're recovered by the Allies, they may be shot for desertion. And if they do go to a prison camp, they'll likely still face the consequences of their actions anyway when the Allies come and liberate them. Though with only William to give evidence against them (assuming he survives the war), and given the general confusion of wartime, they may have a chance of surviving.
- Dramatic Gun Cock: When William is pursuing Marinus through the marshes, the latter shows that he has the former outflanked by the click of a pistol being cocked. As it turns out, neither is willing to kill the other in cold blood.
- Driven to Suicide: The German officer who befriends Marinus in hospital early in the film has seen too much of what his side is doing on the Eastern Front, and refuses to ignore or forget it. He does Marinus the favour of arranging him a desk job, then shoots himself.
- Easy Logistics: A major Aversion of this trope is the basis of this film's plot, as is explained at the beginning. The Western Allies will need massive quantities of supplies and reliable reinforcements to advance into Germany, and have captured Antwerp, one of the few reasonably intact major ports in Northern Europe at the time, to enable this. But the Germans still control the approaches to the port, which is why the Allies have to take this ground at almost any cost.
- Faux Affably Evil: The German commander is quite pleasant to Teuntje's father when he comes to plead for mercy for his son, but Teuntje sees this as mockery, and he orders torture and summary executions with no hesitation or visible remorse.
- Hero of Another Story: The film frequently shows that, in the vast chaos of the war, everyone is the hero or villain of some story somewhere; the three main protagonists simply provide our viewpoint of these particular events. Notably, the force of which William is initially a part is on its way to Arnhem — so had he not been shot down, William would have been a background character in the classic war movie, A Bridge Too Far.
- Hope Spot: The whole town gets a hope spot early in the film when the Germans withdraw, leaving them with the sense that they are now free. However, a slight shift in the tide of battle brings the Germans back a day or two later, and the town becomes the scene of a brutal battle before it is actually liberated.
- La Résistance: The Dutch Resistance in the Walcheren area is a small group of young men and women with limited resources. Although Teuntje initially hopes that they might the sort of Resistance who could help her brother escape from the Germans, their activities are mostly limited to cautious spying. However, this actually proves crucial, as the information which they are able to get to the Allies across the river enables them to get a small force across by boat, outflank the German positions, and win the day.
- Les Collaborateurs: Marinus starts out collaborating with the Germans, presumably out of misplaced anti-communist idealism; he becomes increasingly disaffected with them as the film goes on, but by then he has extreme difficulty in getting away. Teuntje's father is seen as a collaborator by other Dutch people because he is prepared to work with the Germans, but he is actually an idealistic doctor who is struggling with a moral determination to provide treatment to anyone who needs it.
- Naïve Newcomer: William starts the film as a brash, overconfident young trainee glider pilot, and is one of the viewpoint protagonists; we see the problems of the flooded terrain and the violence of infantry combat through his eyes.
- No One Gets Left Behind: The other pilot from William’s glider is wounded and has to be carried as the troops seek to evade the German forces. This makes for an increasingly impossible situation, but William refuses to consider abandoning him.
- Rape Is a Special Kind of Evil: The event that pushes Marinus over the edge into violently opposing the Germans at any cost at the end of the film is when he realises one of them is about to rape Teuntje.
- Redemption Equals Death: Marinus is not only a collaborator, but one who has fought alongside the Germans against the Russians. His plot arc in the film is one of increasing disillusion, until he takes a bullet in the chest saving Teuntje at the end.
- Shot at Dawn: In a bleakly uncomplicated instance of the trope, the Germans execute Dirk (Teuntje’s brother) and other (believed) members of the Resistance by firing squad.
- Spreading Disaster Map Graphic: Inverted, as a map of Europe, complete with little flags showing which army is where, shows the area of German control shrinking in summer 1944 as their fronts collapse in both east (Operation Bagration) and west (the breakout from Normandy and liberation of France).
- This Is Gonna Suck: The Allied troops realise that they can only take the north bank of the river by advancing along the narrow road across a dam, which has been too badly damaged to allow vehicular traffic, in the face of fire from well-entrenched German defenders who will be ready for them. Everybody accepts that the job has to be done, but nobody is at all happy about it. The first day goes just as badly as expected, but then the information supplied by the Dutch Resistance enables them to insert a force behind the German fortifications.
- Two Lines, No Waiting: Three lines, in this case; the stories of the three protagonists are given equal weight, and they only occasionally and briefly intersect.
- War Is Hell: The film's battle scenes are chaotic and brutal, leaving a lot of characters bloody, maimed, or dead — and the survivors are frequently visibly traumatised.
- What Happened to the Mouse?: The other survivors from William's glider give up trying to get back home and just... fade into the scenery? It's a minor instance of the trope as they were never fully developed characters, but what they do, or hope to do, is never explained. They abandoned Captain Turner (and those loyal to him) because he was slowing them down, and stole their only map, so it's likely they planned to make their own way back to their lines, but neither their intentions nor their fate are made explicit.
