Good idea lost in the noise

The film was still a fun one that will make you laugh and have you leaving the theater feeling like you just stole something valuable and got away with it.

The movie's not perfect, but it sticks the landing of its message. It was engaging - thrilling at times - and I personally thought it was a great time.

Blistering performances.

Pretty dreadful adaptation of Faulks' novel.Gillian Armstrong presents a sanitised version of the book, with much of the meat of Charlotte Gray's relationships removed. Unfortunately the story hangs off the intensity of these relationships she has - with Cannerly and Lavade in particular who are never really given screen time to develop. The acting is pretty dull, and the actors are not really helped by the witheringly dull script. Gambon does his best with what little he is given in the role of Lavade, as does Ron Cook as Mirabel, but Crudup and Blanchett are just not firing on all cylinders. Maybe this is because the story has been so acutely edited, paring away all the extraneous parts of the story but in the end offering a sequence of events that create no tension either as a thriller or a romance.My other gripe is the art direction. This looks like a made-for-TV drama, with the costumes and mis-en-scene looking fresh, clean and unused. This drama is based in the 1940s during a war, life was dirty and shabby. Armstrong and her production designer give us an unrealistic picture of wartime France and Britain.Unfortunately this is really just an average British Television Period Drama.

Cate Blanchett is "Charlotte Gray" in this 2001 film directed by Gillian Armstrong and also starring Billy Crudup and Michael Gambon.Charlotte Gray is a young Scottish woman who is recruited during World War II, due to her fluency in French, to work for the French resistance during Nazi occupation. Initially, she goes in the hope of locating her boyfriend (Rupert Perry-Jones), a pilot who was shot down. But she quickly becomes involved in her work. She takes on the identity, after her cover is nearly blown, of a housekeeper in a huge farm house owned by Monsieur Levade (Gambon) and caring for two little Jewish boys hiding there since their parents have been arrested. Levade's son (Crudup) is a Communist on the outs with his father. Gray soon realizes that there are collaborators everywhere, and no one is certain whom they can trust.Though I have some problems with the plot of this movie, it is a very moving and emotional story, exquisitely photographed and acted. Cate Blanchett is luminous, and her portrayal of Charlotte is magnificent, as is her accent. Gambon turns in another excellent performance, and Billy Crudup gives a very intense portrayal of Julien, his son.My problems with the plot include Charlotte's reasons for going to France. She was told that she would be excellent working there because of her fluency in French. Couldn't she have gone because she wanted to help the war effort? It seems flimsy for her to assume that after all of her training and the time that had passed, that she would be able to locate the pilot, if he even was still alive.The other problem I have is the incident in the café with her contact. Her contact knows that she was followed by Nazis, and the Nazi soldiers are on their way into the café, yet she has Charlotte pass her what looks like fuses or valves. Why? The third problem I have is Julien screaming insults at the Nazis. I don't understand why he would do that unless he wanted to be killed. That he wasn't is also strange.Despite all of this, the emotions depicted in this film are real, and the characters seem real as well. The atmosphere is tense - one gets the impression that no one sleeps well, and everyone is under suspicion. One does get an idea of what it was like for the French to live as they had to during the war, surrounded by collaborators and Nazis.This is a case where the script isn't 100% but because of the directing, acting, and production values, it still comes together as a gripping and poignant drama.

Gillian Armstrong's French Resistance drama, inspired by the exploits of a number of women trained by the Special Operations Executive and dropped into France, has a regal, hyperbolic extroversion throughout it. Because Armstrong's sense of reality is allowed to indulge in her fairy-tale expectations, we are directly extricated into the period, thanks to cinematographer Dion Beebe's virtually glowing compositions and Joseph Bennett's discreet, intensely considered production design.Although the French characters all communicate in English, director Armstrong boasts glorious, cinematic instants out of everyone, including the lively, neighborly Michael Gambon as the Crudup character's more or less alienated father. And while the story dives into such agitating subjects as Vichy France and the sadistic elimination of Jewish children, Armstrong never loses focus of the romance at the core of all this.Cate Blanchett, whose energetic panache puts the infinite in finite, takes hold of this movie with a steadfastly ambitious energy. Powerfully enduring in her love for a strapping paratrooper at first, she becomes more independent as the war's toll takes. But as she grows stronger, she also develops a wiser characterization of love. And her enlargement into something of a virtuous vindicator a la Pearl Cornioley, Nancy Wake, Odette Sansom and Violette Szabo is the movie's intriguing psychoemotional core. However, that is not to say that Billy Crudup is disallowed from being a badass, which he is, in a performance as a Resistance fighter who, we think owing to Crudup, could've been a romantic traveller were it not for the war, with an eye for harmony, a love of beauty, yet now he is vindicating his ideals.

I know this is a serious board devoted to the merits of the movie... but I would like to just mention the fact that rarely does an actor have the effect on me that Billy Crudup did in this film. Oh my god what a beauty! Perfect in every way... And obviously extremely talented, made more perfect by his professional choices!So, the film. Well, as a (some time ago) graduate of military history, with a particular interest in the sociological effects of war I have a special fondness for stories like this. I sought out the book and devoured it. I loved it, absolutely, as I do pretty much everything else by Sebastian Faulks. I also enjoyed this film immensely, but as a separate entity. A film is generally incapable of reaching the depths your imagination can take you to through reading a truly great book, maybe people should spend more time reading! I don't agree with the mauling this film was given by the critics, it kept me engaged from beginning to end and the happy ending, although a little trite, is a smile worthy event!Sod the dodgy Scottish, Kate Blanchet was believable as far as I'm concerned. Billy was perfect, as I think I might have mentioned! Michael Gambon - always worth watching and the chap that played the teacher was sufficiently creepy from first sight. The boys were sympathetic without being irritating child actors and the atmosphere was intimidating.It was emotional without being over the top, the relationship between the leads was wonderfully portrayed and I feel it was a valuable description of the horrific situation of collaboration.Not the best film I've ever seen but I definitely enjoyed it. And I'm not sure if you've noticed, and I don't like to bring it up, but Billy Crudup is a god among men.Watch it with an open mind.