Charlotte Gray

When she gets in country, she's dressed like the belle of the ball, complete with a new hair colour and fabulous clothing. No one in France in WWII was wearing well-fitted, new clothing unless she was the mistress of a high-ranking German officer. Also, she has too many changes of clothing, certainly more than fit in the case she carries. And no agent worth her salt would colour her hair and risk it growing out while she was being detained by the Feldgendarmes! Cate's cover is housekeeper of a man who owns a run-down estate. She wouldn't have had a tube of lipstick, much less lipstick that always looks perfect. Unbelievable point number two.

I rented this movie because I am a WWII re-enactor who portrays an SOE agent (in Belgium, though, not France) and I am always looking for good movies to recommend to people who know nothing about the SOE. Well, this ain't it! Not only does the movie make terrible visual mistakes, it oversimplifies a very complex situation. Like most American films, it treats WWII as if it was all about Jewish people being put into concentration camps. MANY non-Jewish people were also sent to concentration camps for various reasons. And the Nazis had numerous other agendas than exterminating God's chosen people. Also SOE didn't drop agents into occupied countries to help hide Jewish kids. They were there to equip and train Resistants, derail trains, blow up bridges, and communicate German positions and troop movements via wireless back to London. The great success of the French Resistance was that, by derailing and incapacitating trains and roadways, they prevented enough German reinforcements from arriving in Normandy until the victory was already decidedly in the hands of the Allies. This common oversimplification of the French situation into a fight to keep Jewish people out of danger practically infuriates me. EVERYONE in occupied France was in constant danger of losing their lives, not just Jews. It was a hellish situation. I did find something redeeming in the scenes after the credits. The director recalls shooting the scene in which the German tanks roll into the village and some of the real villagers started weeping. Over fifty years later, and these people still cry when they are reminded of the horror they endured during the War. I am rather certain that these villagers were not solely of Jewish extraction. To beat the dead horse of the Holocaust demeans the sacrifice and loss suffered by the Gentile population of occupied Europe. That is a terrible sin.

The most offensive character in this movie was Cate's contact who wished he was back in Birmingham. And the idea that he was given a chance at jailtime or serving in the SOE is ludicrous. While SOE used ex-cons as trainers in sabotage and subversion, they were well-cleared and not "straight from the dock". SOE did not and could not afford to recruit untrustworthy people.
The cold, unfeelingness of London's orders may have a grain of truth, however, but England was never known to allow a Resistance cell to be exterminated on purpose (although some argue that this was the situation with the Dutch cells in 1942-43), and they certainly wouldn't set up a bunch of good anti-Germans just because they happened to be communists. It is true that England was wary of working with Communists, it has been shown time and again that they would ignore their political affiliation as long as their dedication to irradicating the Nazi menace was strong. As was the case in Tito's Yugoslavia, the French Resistance's hatred of Hitler outweighed everything else, although they were always suspicious of English assistance. Directly after the War, SOE agents were practically deported to prevent England from having any control in French political matters.

To the non-thinking reviewers who were angry that Blanchett didn't speak fluent French the entire time, get over yourselves. Do you really want to have to read the whole movie?

If you want to watch a good movie/series about SOE in France, get "Wish Me Luck". It's a 6-part series about fictional SOE agents, their training and their operations in occupied France. It lacks the namby-pamby love story of "Charlotte Gray" and the characters are intensely more likeable.