Charlotte Gray (2001) is a film based on the novel by Sebastian Faulkes. Starring Cate Blanchett it is a fantastic film set in war torn France. This film is an interesting watch and interesting for showing what life was like in Vichy controlled France during the 2nd World War. Charlotte Gray played by Blanchett travels from here home town of St. Andrews, Scotland, to take up her role as a medical receptionist in London. On the train she encounters a very English gentleman who spots her reading a French language novel. After a brief chat she awakes in London with the contract details for the man left inside her book. At a social function she ...  Read the complete review

Over the last couple of weeks the weather has been so bad around here that we have found ourselves catching up on some movies on video that we missed at the cinema. And so it came about that we watched Charlotte Grey. I had read an article by Sebastian Faulks where he gave his reaction to the movie. The author felt that Cate Blanchett did a good job of portraying his heroine but really didn’t offer any further insight into the quality of the movie. I decided there and then to read the book first and then see the movie but like so many things in life it never came to pass. The plot is fairly straightforward. Grey (Blanchett) is a young woman from ...  Read the complete review

Routine, Run-of-the-mill and Unoriginal - there you are, in a nutshell, my review of Cate Blanchett's latest offering - the Wartime romance 'Charlotte Gray. We've certainly seen a lot of the talented antipodean recently. Here in the UK we saw BANDITS released in November, where she co-starred with Bruce Willis. That was closely followed by LORD OF THE RINGS, in which she played - albeit briefly - Galadriel. Soon to be on our screens is the much vaunted SHIPPING NEWS, where we see Cate playing opposite Kevin Spacey. This current outing, however, sees her take on the role of Charlotte Gray, the eponymous heroine of Sebastian Faulk's ...  Read the complete review

I don't normally 'do' movies, for the simple reason that neither Heather nor I are great fans of the silver screen. Indeed, over the 32 years since I met Heather, I reckon that we have been to the cinema together, just the two of us, only five times, so this review is on more than just this film - it covers the whole 2001 Cinema Experience from our point of view. OK, before you go rushing off to report us to Social Services for mental cruelty, I must insist that our children were never deprived of the 'rites of passage' cinema visits when they were younger. Either I took them, or our friend Caroline did. She is a neighbours older ...  Read the complete review

After the slushy sentimentalism and factual inaccuracies of Winslet's Enigma, I was hoping for a far superior wartime drama from the normally excellent Cate Blanchett and Billy Crudup. I will state now (just in case I change my mind by the end of the review) that Charlotte Gray is a good film with a tight plot, a sharp script and at times some excellent acting. But the film, which deals with the title character's experiences in the French Resistance in wartime Vichy, lets itself down too many times. There appears to be a trend at the moment for Hollywood actors to be recruited to play British expatriates in films (see Monsieur Depp's performance in ...  Read the complete review