Charlotte Gray

Rating:
Summary: Simply Amazing!
Review: "Charlotte Gray" is a film which has left me stunned, amazed and grateful at the chance for being able to see such brilliance. The movie consists of a simply thrilling storyline, beautiful scenery and wonderous acting on the parts of every character. It is a film for those who are willing to believe anything is possible - that "there must be something to set against all this".

Charlotte Gray is a young Scottish woman who falls in love with a soldier who goes off to WW2. His plane crashes, and so, she becomes a spy to go to Occupied France to rescue him. Upon arriving in the Vichey France; she meets a team of revolutionaries and a new, and tangled storyline emerges from there. Many criticise both book and film for shirking on the WW2 accuracy, but I feel that it *concentrates* on ceratin aspects of the War, instead of skimming over about twenty different circumstances.

Cate Blanchett is unbelievably good as Charlotte - she performs excellently and you can see how her character changes and grows throughout the film. Her stirring speech at the near the end of the movie is simply amazing - she delivers it with feeling and emotion. Billy Crudup took my breath away. He was more than fantastic in his role! He breathed life into the character of Julien, and captured my imagination with his performance. Truly excellent! Notable mentions go to all the other actors, but Billy and Cate stole the show, in my opinion.

If you are looking for a fantstic movie that will take you to another time and place, make you think, and allow you to both remember the pain and tragedy that WW2 brought; and the hope for humanity that was displayed by the brave people who fought for good - Charlotte Gray is the movie for you.

10/10 - Simply Amazing!!

Rating:
Summary: Flawed WW2 Film & Another Proof of Cate Blanchett's Talent
Review: ...the story of Charlotte Gray, who risks her life as a spy behind the enemy line during the WW2, is all based on the historical truth about those brave women who parachuted into France occupied by Germany... "Charlotte Gray," starring Cate Blanchett as the title role, is a film not to be missed for me. And it's Cate Blanchette, so many films in these four years, and not a single bad performance with so many different roles. So why not see this? But sorry, I was very disappointed with it (not Cate, who is fabulous as ever).

Charlotte Gray, as I said, is an English secret agent in occupied France with the false identity. But her original motive was more than love for the country (which she has plenty); she wanted to seek for information on her missing love who was shot down in France. But after she landed there, she realizes that her mission is far more dangerous than she thought, and moreover, she has to be in charge of two boys who, if found by the authority, are certain to be sent to concentration camps. While deeply engaged in her work with the Resistance leader Billy Crudup, and his father Michael Gambon, her original purpose is forced to give way to more immediate needs; that is, survival of herself and her mates.

The director Gillian Armstrong gives gorgeous costumes and pictures of France. As she did in her excellent "Little Women," Gillian Armstrong gives very credible portrait of countryside, but as to the script, the result is simply lamentable. Many flaws can be seen -- uneven pace and unfocused tone of the whole picture, for instance -- but the most damaging is very unconvincing love story between the characters. Despite the best efforts from Blanchett, Billy Crudup does not look like a guy with whom Charlotte is likely to fall in love. Even the main character Charlotte's actions are inconsistent, sometimes making us wonder what she really wants to do.

Inconsistent may be the best way describe the film's flaws. After trained in Britain to speak French fluently, Charlotte drops her French language completely once she arrived at the country. Is this for subtitle-phobias? If so, they should have known that such careless decision for mainstream audience would kill the reality of the film.

But as for cameleon-like Cate Blanchette, she deserves unanimous praise from all of us, who have seen her films with wonder. Most regreattable thing is that obviously Billy Crudup is no match for her, and even veteran Michael Gambon suffers from the underwritten screenplay. "Charlotte Gray" is, therefore, for those fans who want to see another testimony that Cate is one of the best actresses of 21st century. But you already know that her brief shining presence in "Lord of the Rings" did the same job, and much better.

Rating:
Summary: Good Acting, Bad Script
Review: Cate Blanchett can't be faulted for her portrayal of a British (Scottish, actually) agent of the Special Operations Executive in France. But the story is thin, predictable, and isn't worth your time. She falls in love with a RAF pilot who you just know is going to be shot down over France. Somehow in her grief she makes it through SOE's rigourous psychological testing and gets sent to France with the private ulterior motive to find her lost love. Unbelievable point number one.

When she gets in country, she's dressed like the belle of the ball, complete with a new hair colour and fabulous clothing. No one in France in WWII was wearing well-fitted, new clothing unless she was the mistress of a high-ranking German officer. Also, she has too many changes of clothing, certainly more than fit in the case she carries. And no agent worth her salt would colour her hair and risk it growing out while she was being detained by the Feldgendarmes! Cate's cover is housekeeper of a man who owns a run-down estate. She wouldn't have had a tube of lipstick, much less lipstick that always looks perfect. Unbelievable point number two.

I rented this movie because I am a WWII re-enactor who portrays an SOE agent (in Belgium, though, not France) and I am always looking for good movies to recommend to people who know nothing about the SOE. Well, this ain't it! Not only does the movie make terrible visual mistakes, it oversimplifies a very complex situation. Like most American films, it treats WWII as if it was all about Jewish people being put into concentration camps. MANY non-Jewish people were also sent to concentration camps for various reasons. And the Nazis had numerous other agendas than exterminating God's chosen people. Also SOE didn't drop agents into occupied countries to help hide Jewish kids. They were there to equip and train Resistants, derail trains, blow up bridges, and communicate German positions and troop movements via wireless back to London. The great success of the French Resistance was that, by derailing and incapacitating trains and roadways, they prevented enough German reinforcements from arriving in Normandy until the victory was already decidedly in the hands of the Allies. This common oversimplification of the French situation into a fight to keep Jewish people out of danger practically infuriates me. EVERYONE in occupied France was in constant danger of losing their lives, not just Jews. It was a hellish situation. I did find something redeeming in the scenes after the credits. The director recalls shooting the scene in which the German tanks roll into the village and some of the real villagers started weeping. Over fifty years later, and these people still cry when they are reminded of the horror they endured during the War. I am rather certain that these villagers were not solely of Jewish extraction. To beat the dead horse of the Holocaust demeans the sacrifice and loss suffered by the Gentile population of occupied Europe. That is a terrible sin.

The most offensive character in this movie was Cate's contact who wished he was back in Birmingham. And the idea that he was given a chance at jailtime or serving in the SOE is ludicrous. While SOE used ex-cons as trainers in sabotage and subversion, they were well-cleared and not "straight from the dock". SOE did not and could not afford to recruit untrustworthy people.
The cold, unfeelingness of London's orders may have a grain of truth, however, but England was never known to allow a Resistance cell to be exterminated on purpose (although some argue that this was the situation with the Dutch cells in 1942-43), and they certainly wouldn't set up a bunch of good anti-Germans just because they happened to be communists. It is true that England was wary of working with Communists, it has been shown time and again that they would ignore their political affiliation as long as their dedication to irradicating the Nazi menace was strong. As was the case in Tito's Yugoslavia, the French Resistance's hatred of Hitler outweighed everything else, although they were always suspicious of English assistance. Directly after the War, SOE agents were practically deported to prevent England from having any control in French political matters.

To the non-thinking reviewers who were angry that Blanchett didn't speak fluent French the entire time, get over yourselves. Do you really want to have to read the whole movie?

If you want to watch a good movie/series about SOE in France, get "Wish Me Luck". It's a 6-part series about fictional SOE agents, their training and their operations in occupied France. It lacks the namby-pamby love story of "Charlotte Gray" and the characters are intensely more likeable.

Rating:
Summary: "War makes us into people we didn't know we were"
Review: Cate Blanchett is too good of an actress for the title role in "Charlotte Gray." I liked her performance, but the film did not really click for me because too many of the characters do too many stupid things. In the context of this story these stupid things matter because most of the film takes place in Vichy France where stupid things can get you killed. Adapted from Sebastian Faulks' novel by screenwriter Jeremy Brock, "Charlotte Gray" is about a Scottish woman who is doing what she can for King and Country during World War II. Because she can speak fluent French, this means working on radio communications with the French Resistance movement. But we get the feeling that she wants to do more, and certainly we think that she is capable of doing more; after all, this is Cate Blanchett.

Then one evening at a party Charlotte meets Peter (Rupert Penry-Jones), a young airman. Apparently they fall in love. This matter is in doubt somewhat because they spend one passionate night together and when he gets shot down over France, Charlotte she decides to join British Special Operations, be trained to be a special agent, and dropped into France in the general vicinity of where Peter is supposed to be hiding with the Resistance. It is certainly fortunate that Charlotte is sent by her King and Country to where she wants to go, but it is the impulsive decision to go through all that training that bothers me. The French Resistance would be trying to get Peter home, so that it is not like Charlotte should be expecting him stay in one place until she shows up to rescue him. What Charlotte is doing would be like finding out that a loved one has a medical problem and then rushing off to medical school to become a doctor so that you can save their life. There has to be an easier way.

But that actually does not matter because once Charlotte makes contact with the Resistance group she has a whole new set of problems. The leader of the group is Julien Levade (Billy Crudup), who happens to be a Communist. Charlotte's cover as "Dominique" is that she has fled Paris and is working for Julien's father (Michael Gambon). There is a mission to blow up a train that Dominique gets to go along for absolutely no reason that I can think of given that her single talent is that she speaks French (well, and English).

Then we have the moment where the bubble bursts. Nazis march into the provincial French town and Julien stands up and starts screaming curses and the names of citizens who had been killed by the Germans and/or their French collaborators. Dominique finds another talent useful for shutting Julien up, but even over the noise of the tanks the Nazis (and/or their French collaborators), should have spotted the angry French guy and taken out a Luger to shut him up. But this is a film where the hero is betrayed by one of those collaborators not because he is the Nazi hating communist who leads the French Resistance in that neck of the woods but because it is seen as a way of forcing Dominique to submit sexually.

Charlotte might have come to France for Peter but for Dominique the big concern is a pair of young Jewish boys whose parents have already been sent away to a "work" camp. The boys are hiding with Levade's father and since Dominique is a woman she is put in charge of them, which basically means trying to keep anybody from discovering them. This, more than finding Peter or resisting the Nazis, becomes her mission and it appears to be the hardest one of all. The most memorable moment in "Charlotte Gray" concerns the one small victory that she can manage in the overwhelming situation in which she finds herself.

There are three parts to the ending of this film, and what they underscore is what we suspected all along. That Charlotte Gray really was in way over her head when she redirected her life. In fact, if this film had ended with Dominique still in France, I would have had a higher opinion of it. Instead, the point is muddled by making a point of finding out what happened to the film's unstated love triangle. I can see how both Blanchette and director Gillian Armstrong would see the character of Charlotte Gray as being a stronger one than we usually find in World War II movies, but they still should have seen her problematic elements as well and have had them rectified before making this movie. The performances by the principles are quite good, but they do not make up for the flaws in the story.

Rating:
Summary: Candy for the spirit...
Review: CHARLOTTE GRAY -- the movie -- is not high art, merely entertaining. This film is not THE ENGLISH PATIENT, although some scenes remind me of that "other" WWII film (why do Hollywood Nazis always look so glam?). The cast of CHARLOTTE GRAY is wonderful -- Cate Blanchett plays a Scots woman who travels undercover to France to work for the British and their Allies when her pilot boyfriend is shot down; Billy Crudup plays as a French resistance fighter who is a peacetime communist; Michael Gambon plays Crudup's father, a disapproving French farmer with a "past".

The script drags in a few places because there are too many plot elements and some of them are not fully developed. Supposedly, the film is based on a book which would explain the loose ends that could not be brought to closure in a standard length film. I have not been able to locate the book to clear up the confusion, but it seems the screenwriter who translated the book to the film version might have been forced to sacrifice detail critical to the integrity of the story.

The cinematograpy is beautiful. For example, the opening shots of a train carrying Charlotte Gray through the lavendar fields of southern France verge the sublime. I bought the DVD and saw the film on the small screen. I imagine scenes such as the train shots were stunning on the big screen.

Rating:
Summary: Candy for the spirit...
Review: CHARLOTTE GRAY -- the movie -- is not high art, merely entertaining. This film is not THE ENGLISH PATIENT, although some scenes remind me of that "other" WWII film (why do Hollywood Nazis always look so glam?). The cast of CHARLOTTE GRAY is wonderful -- Cate Blanchett plays a Scots woman who travels undercover to France to work for the British and their Allies when her pilot boyfriend is shot down; Billy Crudup plays as a French resistance fighter who is a peacetime communist; Michael Gambon plays Crudup's father, a disapproving French farmer with a "past".

The script drags in a few places because there are too many plot elements and some of them are not fully developed. Supposedly, the film is based on a book which would explain the loose ends that could not be brought to closure in a standard length film. I have not been able to locate the book to clear up the confusion, but it seems the screenwriter who translated the book to the film version might have been forced to sacrifice detail critical to the integrity of the story.

The cinematograpy is beautiful. For example, the opening shots of a train carrying Charlotte Gray through the lavendar fields of southern France verge the sublime. I bought the DVD and saw the film on the small screen. I imagine scenes such as the train shots were stunning on the big screen.

Rating:
Summary: The vicissitudes of war
Review: CHARLOTTE GRAY is a much maligned movie, perhaps due to the fact that we are actively in a war state at present, a war state that is grossly dissimilar from the tenor of WWII. But whatever criticisms that may be laid at the doorstep of this fine little movie are quickly overcome by the visual beauty of the photography (have fields of lavendar in Southern France ever been so lushly captured/painted by a photographer?, etc) and most importantly by the performances by a cast of excellent actors. Cate Blanchett is certainly one of the most versatile and accomplished actresses on the screen today. Her commitment to this role of a Scottish woman who joins the French Resistance because of her love of a pilot and develops into a true believer in the plight of the invaded French people is a tour de force of natural acting. Billy Crudup continues to grow in stature as an actor and Michael Gambon raises the level of distinguished performances. Yes, this film tugs at the heart a bit....is that bad now? War creates abrupt changes in people and results in permanent alterations of places and psyches, and the various subplots of CHARLOTTE GRAY make a strong point of this fact. See this film and decide for yourself.

Rating:
Summary: bahhhhh.....
Review: Charlotte Grey stars Cate Blanchet in a story reminiscent of the old British war movies about Odette Hallowes in "Odette" or Violette Szabo in "Carve her name with pride". All the films mentioned have elements that intertwine with each other. Strong women characters, wartime propaganda, romance etc. Grey is a scot who falls for a pilot. Their relationship is cut short when he is shot down over occupied France. She decides to join the SOE (special operations executive) as a spy for the British. Which severely lets one down as a reason to jump into enemy territory. Her command of French comes in very handy, not that she needs it for this film, and her strong will too, not to mention her unrealistic hyper-patriotic notions. The first part of the movie flashes by far too quickly, more should have been shown of Grey's training in England etc, like in the two previous films mentioned. Anyway Grey is dropped into France where, yes you guessed it, she falls in love with a member of the French resistance. Of course. Sometimes it seems that all women can do in WWII films is fall in love with everyone in a 20km distance. "Charlotte Grey" is no exception. From here the film falls rapidly down a seemingly never-ending hill. Nothing much of consequence really happens and the film could easily have been expanded into a far more entertaining and realistic film. The usual stereotypes of bad WWII movies are there. The beautiful woman pining for her man, the noble French resistance (who all speak in mock French accents that sound like they're extras from the old BBC sitcom "Allo Allo"), the slimy Vichy French and of course the "evil" Germans who by the way seem only to want to catch Jews and ship them off to Auschwitz. Like nothing else ever happened in WWII. All in all, this is a film that is severely let down by filmmakers fear of actually making a film that would be different and far more entertaining than the usual wartime trollop. Oh well, another missed opportunity. See the two films mentioed above. They are far more entertaining.

Rating:
Summary: A War Movie that Focuses on the People
Review: Do not buy this movie if you love battle scenes and action, action, and more action in your war movies. If you have a thing for gore and carnage, you will be very disappointed.

The main focus of this movie is not the war in itself, but the effects of the war on people's lives, which is the only reason I have a thing for war stories. It is amazing to see ordinary people transformed into courageous heroes just for survival.

This story is mainly a romance, in my opinion. Charlotte is willing to risk her life to travel to France in search of her lover, a pilot who went down over France and who is now trapped in its borders. But she is distracted from her mission by the plight of two little Jewish boys whose parents have been arrested. She and a handsome ally take the boys into hiding and care for them. But there are spies and informers everywhere who are more than willing to betray their former friends and neighbors. Charlotte finds her loyalties torn between two countries, two identities, and two men.

It was a lovely movie with great acting, a wonderful plot, breathtaking scenery, and best of all, it ends like it should. I would give it more than five stars, if I could.

Rating:
Summary: Hope is all we have...
Review: During the World War II Charlotte Gray travels to Scotland where she meets the love of her life who is a Royal Air Force pilot. Her beloved is then transferred to fly raids over France and Germany. Meanwhile, she is recruited by the British Secret Service to serve as a courier. When she finds out that her loved one is shot down in France she seeks an opportunity to go to France on a mission with the notion of hopefully helping save her dearest. When she lands in France she quickly faces the facts of war and is forced to learn how to adapt or perish. Charlotte Gray is a cinematic experience that plays with themes of hope and despair and it leaves the audience pondering both.