Head in the Clouds (2004)

            This film was not at all what I expected.  The short blurb on the DVD jacket was misleading, as was the title.  For reasons not altogether clear, this movie falls into the "romance" genre, but it's really more and it's also less.  The storyline is an ambitious tale that bridges the period from Paris in 1924 to the early 1940s and WWII.  There are stops along the way in Cambridge 1933, Rheims 1937, Spain 1938 and Germany 1944, so you can see the plot is attempting to be an epic drama.  And the rise of fascism in Europe creates an uncomfortable tension that is a key part of this story.

            However the epic nature of this film is merely the backdrop to the lives of three very different, but very interesting characters: a rich girl, a poor scholar and poor girl.  Their relationship is intense, convenient, difficult, passionate, distant, turbulent but hardly a conventional romance.  It has the complexity of a novel jammed into a two-hour film so that it was both too much and too little. 

            The film opens with B&W footage that looked to me more like the 30s than the 20s.  But it then switches to color and true to good writing, it begins with a fortuneteller's angst, a hook that foreshadows the future.  The story moves quickly at first, but the triad's relationship reaches a stasis, leaving us dependent on history for rising tension.  For this reason, the film seemed a little too long.

            Charlize Theron plays Gilda, the rich girl and in most respects she is the primary protagonist.  She's the wild wanton beautiful heiress, secure in her self-contained belief system that lets her do whatever she feels like doing.  The character seems anachronistic, like she should have been cast in the roaring '20s jazz age.

            Stuart Townsend plays Guy, a Cambridge graduate, teacher and political zealot.  His relationship with Gilda is the nexus of the plot.  Penelope Cruz plays Mia, a beautiful stripper, but a lesser member of the triad, yet still important to the final dénouement.

            The triad's lascivious behavior as well as some violence makes this justifiably an "R" rated adult film.  That doesn't condemn it.  Regardless of my criticisms, it was an interesting plot set during a difficult period of history.  The three characters have little in common, but that raises the level of interest in their relationship. 

            Reviewed September 19, 2005                      Copyright 2005 Charles T. Markee

            MPAA: Rated R for sexuality, nudity and some violence.