It's 1940 Berlin. Army Capt. Stefan Brandt (Jai Courtney) is on the outs after an incident during the Poland invasion. He is sent to Holland to guard former Kaiser Wilhelm II (Christopher Plummer). He follows the victorious advancing German forces to find the former ruler bitter at his losses and his wife Hermine (Janet McTeer) eagerly pushing for the monarchy to be reinstalled. Colonel Sigurd von Ilsemann (Ben Daniels) is the chief of staff and Mieke de Jong (Lily James) is the new maid. Gestapo Inspector Dietrich is searching for a British spy suspected to be in the nearby village. The situation comes to a head when SS Commander Heinrich Himmler arrives to meet Wilhelm.

It's an interesting wartime espionage film until Mieke essentially reveals her situation to Stefan. I assumed that she was playing him but apparently the movie was about her falling in love with him. I don't buy this central premise and that does irk me for the rest of the movie. In order to sell him as the Exception, the Poland incident really needs to be the first scene. The movie needs to make him the hero of the piece. I'm not necessarily a fan of Jai but that is all on the movie. Lily James does the best she can and there are some great veteran actors around. They make this better than its worth.

After the invasion of Belgium, Captain Brandt (Jai Courtney) is assigned to protect The Kaiser in exile in Belgium. While he is there he is informed there is a British spy who we know is working as the maid (Lily James.) The story develops slowly adding small layers of complexity.

The film attempts to revive the idea of "the good German" and not all soldiers on "their" side is bad. Brandt believe the SS who gunned down innocent people were the exception to the norm. He doesn't have the belly for it. The movie was more drama than a war film.

Guide: Sex and nudity (Jai Courtney, Lily James)

I enjoyed this film, particularly the acting of Christopher Plummer. He played Kaiser Wilhelm as a kindly old man, which he had to in order to get the fictional romance aspect to work. The Kaiser was arrogant in real life and definitely an anti-Semite. Hitler had no use for him and thought he was an idiot.

Kaiser Wilhelm was in exile in Holland; as in the film, he was offered sanctuary by Churchill in England, but he refused, preferring to stay in Holland until his death at the age of 82. He hoped to be restored to the throne, but that didn't happen.

In this story, Mieke (Lily James),a Dutch maid working in the Kaiser's household, is actually a spy feeding information to the local priest. He is using a hidden cipher machine to pass along information, but the Nazis are aware the machine is somewhere in the village.

Mieke meets Stefan, the German in charge of guarding the Kaiser (Jai Courtney),They fall in love -- leaving both of them in a difficult situation.

More of a romance than anything else, The Exception is a fanciful story with some good performances, including Janet McTeer as the Kaiser's wife and the young James as Mieke. Courtney gives a subtle performance as someone who needs to hide his true feelings.