Review of Charlotte Gray (2001) by Alison O — 11 Oct 2004

Best in Show: Cate Blanchett (except for 'Scottish' accent).

One for the future: Cate Blanchett.

Stand-out scene:

Brainer or no-brainer: Brainer.

Stands up to one viewing or repeated?: Repeated.

DVD commentary any good?: n/a.

TV.

Watched this immediately after seeing a documentary about the real Charlotte Grays who fought in France during WW2. They trained incognito as members of the First Aid Nursing Yeomanry (FANY for short) and the stories of the MBE-awarded unflappable FANYs were amazing. It's a shame that this film adaptation treads a fairly asinine route through the subject matter, but Cate Blanchett is once again exemplary in the title role. Well, she would be had she nailed the Scottish accent - it sounds Irish at times; perhaps she was working on her accent for Veronica Guerin simultaneously. Also, the whole idea of the resistance women was that they were intended to blend in with the locals, stay anonymous and attract as little attention as possible so sending a radiant statuesque beauty (blonde turned brunette or no) would have kind of defeated the object, but then again this is a work of fiction. Pregnant-girlfriend-ditching Billy Crudup is the leading male and he acquits himself competently as a communist on poor terms with his half-Jewish father (Michael Gambon). Adapted from the Sebastian Faulk novel, it's an entertaining enough way to spend two hours but you're left pondering what might have been.