Love amid the Nazis

>> Cate Blanchett is great in the okay Charlotte Gray

by MATTHEW HAYS

Who wouldn’t want to watch Cate Blanchett for two hours? The actress is fine in anything she takes on, from her Elizabeth to The Talented Mr. Ripley. Here, she shines as a devoted spy helping the French resistance during WWII, but the film itself doesn’t quite hold up.
In Charlotte Gray, Blanchett plays the title’s namesake, a woman frustrated that she can’t quite serve her country in a meaningful way during the war effort. She falls in love with an officer, who’s soon shot down over France, and Blanchett decides she must be a part of the fight against the Nazis. Her skill at speaking French, it seems, means she’s up for the task of undercover spy in the Vichy regime of France, where Jews are still being rooted out and shipped off to the camps.
The sheer cruelty of the Nazis is illustrated well in a number of key suspense sequences by director Gillian Armstrong (Oscar and Lucinda). Blanchett finds herself protecting two sweet young Jewish children, trying desperately to keep their existence a secret as the French government collaborators and Nazis move in for the vicious sweep. There are covert operations, escape sequences (both successful and botched) and horrifying you-know-they’re-going-to-die-now wrenchers.
But Gray suffers a bit simply from the sheer volume of Nazi-related WWII movies we’ve seen. There have been many, and they’ve been done extremely well. Which isn’t really an excuse for a film to suck, seeing as the sign of a great film is to bring a fresh angle to a topic and tell a story well (despite how many times it’s been done before).
Gray should have been great, considering the neat angle (women undercover in a war we mainly think of as fought by men), the superb cast and the solid director. But instead, it feels like an opportunity only half-championed. Blanchett—and the gals who risked their lives for liberty during WWII—deserve a bit better than this. :

Charlotte Gray opens Friday, Jan. 11