phoenix 2 Many films have been inspired from the World War II. This one adds a romantic note to the whole struggle of the war. Beautiful structured, follows the life of the main character, Charlotte Gray, who participates on the resistance in France. Amazing landscapes, form a nice atmosphere, in addition to the great costumes. On the other hand, the performances are perfect, picturing nicely the human drama and the effort to deal with difficult situations that the war create. The director controls the drama and the thriller so that they are not too much for the audience to be bored. The only thing that works against the whole movie is the fact that they are using English as the main language, even on letters, which seems odd as the main plot takes place in France. All in all, a great historical film.

Waerdnotte 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.

tesab-1 Charlotte Gray is beautifully filmed, but I found the story somewhat disjointed. She is asked to go to France before her boyfriend is shot down, so her first reason for going is not because she is looking for him. They fall "in love" after a one-night stand? So typical of Hollywood. The man heading the cell in France says he is a Communist; he never says the group is communist. Even so, another incident of Hollywood making the communists look like the good guys, when in fact, Communism is even more harsh than Nazism or Fascism (count the number of people killed by each regime). The dialogue was hard to hear in parts of the movie, as it was too softly spoken (audio editor problem). There are some heart-wrenching scenes and one does get the feel of occupied France. I didn't understand why she had to dye her hair---undercover men do not do so, and it was probably hard to obtain hair color during the war. Then at the end of the movie, her hair is an in-between color: not her normal blonde as in the beginning, nor the dark brunette of her resistance days.

writers_reign Okay, you know going in that it's yet another film about a female agent liaising with the Resistance in Occupied France during World War Two, some viewers may even have read the (undeservedly) best-selling novel on which it was based, but you go anyway, maybe you admire Cate Blanchett and I've no quarrel with that, she's a fine actress, maybe you like 'period' movies, again you won't hear a squawk out of me, in fact those two reasons were what prompted me. It's a good movie - well, it's not a BAD movie, but perhaps in this case the opposite of bad is NOT good. An indifferent movie is nearer the truth. Within the last couple of years an English newspaper gave away a series of dvds set in WWII one of which was Carve Her Name With Pride which covers much of the same ground except that it was about a REAL Resistance worker, Violette Szabo, who failed to survive the war unlike the fictional Gray; Carve Her Name, made in black and white is light years better than the Technicolored Charlotte Gray, Blanchett's fine performance notwithstanding. As long as we're making comparisons I also disagree with the person who unaccountably rated this movie higher than Claude Berri's Lucie Aubrac but then difference of opinion is what makes horse races.