The Exception

In the early days of the Second World War, after the German invasion of the Netherlands, a German officer named Stefan Brandt is sent to the estate where Kaiser Wilhelm II lives in exile. His assignment is to look into whether Dutch resistance fighters have placed an agent inside the household. What he finds there is not what he expects, and he begins an affair with Mieke de Jong, a young Jewish woman working at the house. Their relationship unfolds against the suspicions of the SS, who sense that something is wrong among the staff and start hunting for a mole.

David Leveaux directed the film, working from a screenplay by Simon Burke. It was released in June 2017 and runs 107 minutes. The cast is led by Jai Courtney as Brandt, Lily James as Mieke, and Christopher Plummer as the former Kaiser, with Eddie Marsan as Heinrich Himmler and Janet McTeer as Princess Hermine. Ninety-one crew members and twenty-eight credited cast members worked on the production, which was mounted by companies based in Germany, Belgium, the United Kingdom and the United States, including uMedia and Egoli Tossell Film. The film drew a modest audience response, holding a 6.8 rating from around 17,000 votes on IMDb and a 6.9 from roughly 480 votes on TMDB, while critics gave it a 6.2 from 61 reviews.