Charlotte Gray (2001)

A young Scottish woman joins the French Resistance during World War II to rescue her Royal Air Force boyfriend who is lost in France.

Director:

Gillian Armstrong

Writers:

Sebastian Faulks (novel), Jeremy Brock (screenplay)

Stars:

Cate Blanchett, James Fleet, Abigail Cruttenden

6 nominations.

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Cate Blanchett	...	Charlotte Gray
James Fleet	...	Richard Cannerly
Abigail Cruttenden	...	Daisy
Charlotte McDougall	...	Sally
Rupert Penry-Jones	...	Peter Gregory (as Rupert Penry Jones)
Robert Hands	...	Borowski
Tom Goodman-Hill	...	Business Man at Party
Michael Fitzgerald	...	Business Man at Party
Hugh Ross	...	Psychiatrist
Martin Oldfield	...	Assault Course Instructor
Nicholas Farrell	...	Mr. Jackson
Mike Burnside	...	Morse Code Instructor
Damian Myerscough	...	Gun Instructor
Miranda Bell	...	Female Instructor
Angus Wright	...	Agent

Storyline

Charlotte (Cate Blanchett), a young Scottish woman, who has studied in France, is living in London during World War II. Within a few weeks she falls in love with a young pilot and is recruited by the Secret Service to act as a courier for the French Resistance. However, her mission behind enemy lines becomes a personal mission to find her lover who has been shot down. Assigned to a Communist Resistance group, she encounters acts of betrayal from sometimes unexpected sources, but meets the violence of war and her own disappointment with hope.

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Plot Keywords:

1940s | character name as title | train station | resistance | french resistance | 

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Taglines:

The story of an ordinary woman in an extraordinary time.

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Genres:

Drama | Romance | Thriller | War

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Motion Picture Rating (MPAA)

Rated PG-13 for some war related violence, sensuality and brief strong language

Did You Know?

Trivia

The true story of Nancy "White Mouse" Wake inspired Sebastian Faulks' 1999 novel Charlotte Gray upon which this movie was based. Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard said Mrs. Wake was "a truly remarkable individual whose selfless valor and tenacity will never be forgotten." Born in New Zealand, but raised in Australia, she is credited with helping hundreds of Allied personnel escape from occupied France. Working as a journalist in Europe, she interviewed Adolf Hitler in Vienna in 1933 and then vowed to fight against his persecution of Jews. After the fall of France in 1940, Mrs. Wake became a French Resistance courier and later a saboteur and spy, setting up escape routes and sabotaging German installations, saving hundreds of Allied lives. She worked for British Special Operations and was parachuted into France in April 1944 before D-Day to deliver weapons to French Resistance fighters. At one point, she was top of the Gestapo's most wanted list. "Freedom is the only thing worth living for. While I was doing that work, I used to think it didn't matter if I died, because without freedom, there was no point in living", Mrs. Wake once said of her wartime exploits. It was only after the liberation of France that she learned her husband, French businessman Henri Fiocca, had been tortured and killed by the Gestapo for refusing to give her up. She was Australia's most decorated servicewoman, and one of the most decorated Allied servicewomen of World War II. France awarded her its highest honor, the Legion D'Honneur. She also received Britain's George Medal, and the U.S. Medal of Freedom. In 2004, she was made Companion of the Order of Australia. She died in London on August 8, 2011 at the age of ninety-eight.

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Goofs

In some shots of the departing deportation train, it can clearly be seen that the goods wagons used bear the inscription "UIC St" and a rather long wagon number. Both things belong to the international UIC numbering system, not introduced before 1965.

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Quotes

[first lines]
Charlotte Gray: [narration] It all seemed so simple. We were at war. The Nazis were the enemy. And because good must triumph over evil, so we would triumph over them. How could we have know that war ever trades in such certainty? That we are nothing is unthinkable. Anything could be true. Even a lie.

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Connections

Featured in Cinemania: I anodos kai i ptosi tou Nazismou (2008)

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Soundtracks

Daddy
As performed by Harry Roy and his band
(p) 1941
Licensed courtesy of EMI Records
Written by Bobby Troup, World Music, Inc
By kind permission of Warner/Chappell Music Ltd

User Reviews

Sweetly Confected Wartime Artifice

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.

Details

Official Sites:

FilmFour and Warner Bros. [UK] Warner Bros. . Awards Site - trailer, screenings [United States]

Country:

UK Australia Germany

Language:

English

Release Date:

11 January 2002 (USA)

Also Known As:

Charlotte Gray

Filming Locations:

Midi-Pyrénées, France

Box Office

Budget:

$20,000,000 (estimated)

Opening Weekend USA:

$46,271, 30 December 2001

Gross USA:

$741,394

Cumulative Worldwide Gross:

$5,323,109

Company Credits

Production Co:

Ecosse Films, FilmFour, Pod Film

Technical Specs

Runtime:

121 min

Sound Mix:

DTS Dolby Digital SDDS

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1