One of director Gillian Armstrong's early movies is one of my all-time favorites: My Brilliant Career, the bracing story of a fiercely independent woman in turn-of-the-century Australia who defies convention and expectations to become a writer, sacrificing a relationship with Sam Neill to live on her own terms (not what I would have done, but hey, that's why no one's making movies about me). The heroine of her latest movie, the eponymous Charlotte Gray, goes the other way, sacrificing herself for everything in sight: her country, men she's known for a few days, and a stranger's children.
Considering the names above the title are Cate Blanchett, Billy Crudup, and Michael Gambon, I expected a lot more from this movie. But I think I would have been disappointed even with lowered expectations. It's plain to me that massive chunks of plot, motivation, and background must have been left out in the transition from novel to screen, because it's an awfully thin piece of work. Blanchett is Charlotte Gray, who meets the adorable Peter (apple-cheeked Rupert Penry-Jones) in wartime London and spends a few days in bed with him; then he's sent off to fight the Nazis and gets shot down somewhere in France. Even before she knows this, she's been training to be a courier between British intelligence and the French Resistance -- for never-explained reasons, she feels a strong connection to France -- so when she hears of his disappearance, she is hopeful that, in the course of her first mission, she can track him down. She parachutes into Vichy France, practically into the arms of a gorgeous French Resistance fighter (Billy Crudup). They instantly, instinctively trust each other on sight because they are both unnaturally beautiful and -- I'm not spoiling anything here for anyone who's ever seen a movie before -- fall in love while doing heroic things like blowing up trains and protecting Jewish children.
The most annoying thing about the movie is that everyone speaks English. Charlotte is supposedly fluent in French, but she says all her lines in English, with a faint Scottish burr. Her cover story in the little French village is that she's from Paris... the Highlands arrondissement? Meanwhile, all the French people speak in English with mild accents, even when they're talking to each other. I love Billy Crudup, but why not hire a French actor? I don't think that subtitles would have scared away the target audience for this movie, so I can't understand why no one ever speaks French (although it one-ups The Count of Monte Cristo by at least having the signs in France be in French -- and spelled correctly). Only the Germans speak German, which is never subtitled or translated -- after all, we know everything they say must be evil, because they yell a lot and bark, "Schnell! Schnell!" at little kids, so why bother with details?
The movie moves along ploddingly and overdoes the dramatics, like when Crudup is standing in the street screaming the names of disappeared people at the incoming Nazi tanks, and the only way Blanchett can think to shut him up is to suck his face. (And once he stops shouting, the Nazis, who were apparently ready to shoot him seconds before, completely forget about him.) Aside from the language issue, nothing is egregiously wrong with Charlotte Gray, but not much is right with it either.
There are
small pleasures to compensate. The French countryside
is gorgeous. Cate Blanchett looks smashing in her fabulous '40s
outfits,
and it's nice that she isn't a superwoman who single-handedly saves the
day -- more often than not, she messes up and doesn't save
anyone.
Michael Gambon is great as Crudup's curmudgeonly father. And I'll
never turn down a chance to see Billy Crudup larger than life, even if
he doesn't once say, "Gosh, it's hot in here. I think I'll take
off
my shirt."
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