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Charlotte Gray  BY: DAVID PERRY For international intrigue, the thought of spending a couple hours with Cate Blanchett and Gillian Armstrong sounds quite commanding. But two artisans hard at work cannot save what is essentially a bad script. The World War II love triangle found in Charlotte Gray may not be as egregiously repugnant as the similar one found in Michael Bay's Pearl Harbor, but that's not really saying much. Charlotte Gray is not really a bad movie, just far from the grand achievement that you might expect from Armstrong and Blanchett. The film begins with a flaxen haired Charlotte Gray (Blanchett) sitting in her train coach en route from her Scottish hometown to her London job. Also in the coach is a representative from the foreign ministry, a type of organizer for the secret agents sent from Britain into the Vichy Regime's holdings of Southern France. Though not terribly interested in the comments made by this man, she attends a book party, where he intends to get to know her better and whether her fluency in the French language and culture could help him. Charlotte is not completely turned on to the notion of fighting the covert war waged by her government, but she falls in love before she can turn down the offer. Peter Gregory (Penry-Jones), a young RAF flyboy, comes into her closed world and convinces her that there is something more than the sanctity of her country to fight for. When Gregory is reportedly shot down over France and being housed by a kind French family from the German and Vichy forces, Charlotte decides she should join the ranks of the secret agents. Given a new identity (Dominique, a wife fleeing the north after the imprisonment of her husband by Germany), given a dark-haired dye job, and dropped into the French countryside, Charlotte begins working both to do her job helping England and to find out where Peter is. Her contact is Julien Lavade (Crudup), a Resistance fighter who not only wants to free France from the German reign but also to push people to a communist society after the war is over. With a small troupe of fellow freedom fighters, Julien continues his work in the area as the leader of all Resistance operations. As must be the case, Charlotte begins to find herself in love with Julien after hearing some unreassuring news about Peter's situation. To keep their cooperation together from raising the scrutiny of local Vichy supporters, Julien has Charlotte pose as the housemaid for the large but overgrown estate of his somewhat estranged father (Gambon), where he is housing a couple homeless Jewish children. The politics and, for that matter, the sense of history of Charlotte Gray seem lost on the screenplay by Jeremy Brock. There is a small overview of the history predating the events in the film, but they are so slight that anyone seeing the film without prior knowledge of the dichotomy of 1943 France would be lost as to why the Frenchmen of the film are so fearful of the Vichy Regime. Admittedly, this film was made in Europe where most schoolchildren learn of Vichy, Free French, Henri Petain, and Charles de Gaulle, but in America this information is about as unknown outside of college graduates as the story of John Hancock signing the Declaration of Independence first would play to a kid in Switzerland. However many holes there may be in the screenplay (not to mention some really horrid dialogue), Charlotte Gray does stand as a satisfactory film visually. Armstrong and cinematographer Dion Beebe turn the picturesque French countryside and the curvy face of Mrs. Blanchett into frames of film worthy of putting up on your wall. Along with a moody score from Stephen Warbeck and a fine supporting turn from Michael Gambon, it's tough to consider Charlotte Gray a complete disappointment. But the real reason why the move deserves a recommendation,
if only for second tier viewing (and, considering the film's platform release schedule, it
may be the best thing in some theatres as opposed to Spring film stock), is Mrs.
Blanchett. Anyone who reads my ranting and raving remarks on Mrs. Blanchett with every
performance should know that I consider her to be the best actress of this generation, if
not any before her. The common camparison is to Cate Blanchett and Meryl Streep, but in a
much more prolific package. Even though there have been some rocky releases from Cate
Blanchett as of late, she once again proves with her performance in Charlotte Gray
that she is the most deserving person to not yet have an Academy Award on her mantle. If,
perchance, Heaven or The Lord of the Rings trilogy finally put this to
rest before her impending short-term retirement, I might finally come to terms with the
group long unaware of the constant quality work unleashed by Mrs. Blanchett. |
