I really love movies and books about WWII. There's just something about the era: the music, the clothes, Rosie the Riveter, handsome American soldiers fightin' Nazis.
About that last one...hmm, it's a little weird watching a movie about the evils of Nazism when the call is coming from inside the house nowadays.
But I digress.
At its heart, Allied isn't actually about WWII or about fightin' the Nazis. It's about trust and whether or not you can truly know someone even if you sleep next to them in bed every night.
Directed by Robert Zemeckis and starring Brad Pitt and Marion Cotillard, Allied has a distinctly old-fashioned feel. It recalls 1940s film noir: dames in silk dresses wielding guns; men in uniform meeting in underground bunkers; lovers stabbing lovers in the back (psychologically, at least). Allied received mixed critical reviews, but I found it to deliver on its promise to thrill and entertain.
If you've seen the preview, you know the plot: Brad Pitt and Marion Cotillard play Max Vatan and Marianne Beausejour, spies put on assignment in French Morocco in 1942 to play a married couple and Nazi sympathizers so that they can gain entry to an elite party and assassinate the German ambassador. Marianne is especially good at playing her role, explaining the cultural customs of Casablanca to the less detail-oriented Max. She also tells him, after giving him a very convincing smooch in front of friends, that she "keeps the emotions real. That's why it works."
In a completely unpredictable twist, the two fall in love and decide to marry after their assignment is carried out. They move to London and Marianne gives birth to a little girl. All's swell in paradise.
Until Max is called into work one day and taken by his commanding officer, Frank (Jared Harris--yay, Mad Men cameo!) to meet with a high-ranking officer who informs Max that they have reason to suspect that Marianne is a German spy. They've discovered messages being delivered to the enemy from the vicinity of Max and Marianne's neighborhood and they also have reason to believe that Marianne took the identity of a French resistance fighter to infiltrate even deeper into Allied territory.
They inform Max that he will be given false information during a late-night phone call and he is to leave it where his wife will see it. If the false information is leaked, they'll know Marianne is indeed a spy and Max will "dispatch her" with his own hand. Now, that last part seems a little...not right? As my mom pointed out after the movie, wouldn't it make more sense for them to arrest Marianne and torture her for more information? That's the American in me--wondering why they'd waste a perfectly good opportunity to waterboard someone until they squeal, right? But I guess forcing a man to put a bullet in his own wife's head or be hanged for treason just has more dramatic *oomph* to it.
I thought Allied did a pretty good job of keeping you guessing about Marianne until the end. Half of the movie is Brad Pitt disobeying orders and trying to find out on his own whether or not Marianne is who she says she is by doing some hugely shady (and likely treasonous) stuff. But every time it seems like he might have an answer, something throws a monkey wrench in his way.
I admit that while Allied is certainly elegant in its cinematography, it's not particularly elegant (or believable) in its plot. But it really does have its moments--two excellent scenes take place during parties: the first when Max and Marianne carry out their assignment to assassinate the German ambassador and the second during a party at their home in London, after Max has been briefed about his wife's possible double life but before he knows for sure.
Allied isn't a ground-breaking film. Quite the opposite, in fact: it's old-fashioned, a throwback to films of earlier eras. It sucks you in and offers, despite it's suspenseful plot, a measure of comfort and assurance. And I was all too happy to tune in and drop out of reality for a couple hours.
Grade: B
No comments:
Post a Comment