Review of Charlotte Gray (2001) by Rebeca T — 26 May 2008

Charlotte Grey stars the Brilliant 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 of these films have elements that intertwine with each other, such as strong women characters, wartime propaganda, romance, etc. But as a film of its type, "Charlotte Grey" fails quite badly.

Grey is a Scot who falls for an RAF pilot, but their relationship is cut short when he is shot down over occupied France. On the basis of this, she then decides to join the SOE (Special Operations Executive) as a spy for the British. Which is severely undernourished as a plausible reason to grab a weapon and a bit of silk and jump into enemy territory.

Her command of French comes in very handy (not that she needs it for this film) and her strong will is needed too, not to mention her unrealistic hyper-patriotic notions. Disappointingly, the first part of the movie flashes by far too quickly and I felt that more should have been shown of Grey's training in England etc, like in the two previous films mentioned.

Either way, Grey is dropped into France where, yes you guessed it, she falls in love again, this time with a member of the French resistance...of course she does. It seems to me sometimes, that all women can do in WWII films is fall in love with everyone in a 20km distance and "Charlotte Grey" is no exception unfortunately.

From here the film falls rapidly down a seemingly never-ending hill and it's a hill sodden with cliché. Nothing much of consequence really happens and it's a shame as the film could easily have been expanded into a far more entertaining and realistic exercise. The usual stereotypes of bad WWII movies are all here...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 the filmmakers fear of actually making something different than the usual wartime trollop that's served up to a generally unknowing audience. Oh well, we'll have to mark it down as another missed opportunity. See the other two films mentioned above, they are far more entertaining and they do everything "Charlotte Grey" does much, much better.