Charlotte Gray
 

Ok man, all that matters about this movie is CATE BLANCHETT. CATE BLANCHETT, I tell you!

I am in love with this woman. If I were a man, I'd be begging for marriage. Ever since Elizabeth, she won my admiration (adulation?). The chick has chutzpah! Acting skill! A voice to make your heart stop and start all over again! She was bliss in LOTR! And here we are in a romantic war semi-epic that of course serves to make her just look even more wonderful. sigh. she makes me happy. :)

So, this is the story of a Scottish young maiden who has a bleeding heart, a talented tongue, and falls for a London airfighter during WWII. Hearing that he has been lost over France she takes her language skills to the Resistance, but can't reveal her true reasons. There she sees the truth of war, and becomes a new person, realizing the depth of human selfishness and trying to find her way ... issues of marytrdom, sacrifice, love, brotherhood, fraternite, et cetera ...

Cate is beautiful, makes me thirst for 1940s clothing - check out the hem of her skirts and those calves! All the other characters are wonderfully believable and skilled. Nothing felt false here, at all. It was all just so, and just right. Accents were very good, costume design, etc.

The film has a happy ending and walks the line, like Life is Beautiful - that infamous film upset some people because of how "lightly" it supposedly took the horrors of WWII. This one delves heavily into the romantic aspect (not just romantic love, but the sentimental) and we are never ever going to get over the Nazi Regime - it is too horrific, too amazing, to endlessly shocking. I realized that when they showed a Nazi flag unfurling. they can make a million movies about this, publish a million lost diaries, and we will never get over it.

I feel to some degree the film remained naive about the war but we could chalk this up to Charlotte's particular situation/luck. It does handle the realities, subtleties and cruelties of interpersonal dynamics, collaboration, etc - making compromises, everywhere, how, as it's said in the movie, "No one is normal, here." You might term this a movie meant more for women - certainly got me and a friend of mine weepy. But it's also a "grow up and learn" movie, and taught some good lessons, for the main character, and I think, for the audience as well. Makes you feel at the end that while the happy stuff may be a bit on the sappy romantic side (this being based off one of those "sweeping" novels regarding some heroine or another), that in its way it treasures the joy that is short lived, so hard to come by, during such hard times - and sings true to the issue of "hope" that Charlotte chooses, despite the atrocities and realities of WWII that our main character gets just a taste of - and which makes us grateful (those of us who can claim it) that we never did/do.

3.5 stars!

I saw a trailer for this and want to see it. I can't remember what drew me in, aside from Cate, but I DO want to see it. :) Thanks for the review thmmie.

yer welcome; I changed it a wee bit ;)

i have to agree on the cate part, she looked great in this movie. the only reason i saw bandits btw. but for some reason, i don't know why i didn't care what was going on. i cared about the kids more than anyone else. but i don't know, this movie didn't move me. i give it like 2 starts out of 5.