Head in the Clouds | Review

Wartime drama looks great but lacks depth.

Films that cross melodrama romances with a tangled-up back-drop of the WWII world usually don’t measure up; – they either fail to capture the rawness of the events or fail to project the kind of realism that is demanded for such an emotionally taxing event in history.

John Duigan’s ambitious project succeeds in establishing the conditions and in fashioning the look of the era and perhaps even appropriately taps into the fatalist fever that was embedded within many of the freedom fighter’s psyches, but where the film fails is in determining the purpose of its principle characters. With Head in the Clouds, the writer-director offers up what may be considered as his first pièce de résistance in the last decade with a period piece that doesn’t over-do itself or either forgets to. Somewhere in this moderately-priced production, the film appears to lose its tempo, primarily because it doesn’t stray away from its course of predictability and the languishing, sluggish middle-half featuring dim-lit encounters between a cross section of three lacks bravura. Since when does a scene between lipstick-sharing divas fail to drum up some sort of a reaction in a film?

Channeling the diva-esque spirits of a Marlene Dietrich, Charlize Theron’s follow-up role to her Oscar-winning performance elicits a full-fledged sexiness both in appearance, posture and language. If her tie-and-hat wearing sequence in a tub doesn’t hypnotize on-lookers then her snappy replies found in the character’s dialogue will surely turn a few ears. Theron plays an affluent socialite more concerned about the circle around her than the rest of the world’s problems. Satisfying her sexual and intellectual curiosity, she picks up people as if they were objects – and just when her private collection is complete, the imminence of the war disrupts her play pen. The film travels well through the periods, pre-war school days evoke full of the world is an oyster ideals and the post-war moments of the film manages to have its Hollywood film from the 40’s ending without the over-sentimentality. Everything in between is alluring, from the beautiful production and a great mise-en-scene, but actors Stuart Townsend (The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen) and Penelope Cruz (Don’t Tempt Me ) hardly make their presence known – it’s as if Theron’s Gilda Besse is the firewood, the fireworks and the lighter fluid but the other two are fire marshals – failing to stir up desired electric charges. Perhaps there is a confusion on who this story is about – the focus of the film seems to drift back and forth between Gilda and Guy, the sexual ambiguities mount and Townsend’s scenes are shortened enough to make his performance unconvincingly tamed down.

Duigan’s 2-plus hour opus manages to incorporate the elements of displacement, of longing, of imminence of the moment and the fear of a war looming, but its treatment is patted down to keep from for other fluff. Duigan tries to thematically plug in the notion of fate and sacrifice but the elongated botched character studies triumphs over that question of fatalism making Head in the Clouds a better candidate for a solid HBO television mini-series than an theatrical release.

(Montreal World Film Festival)

Rating 2 stars