Picturesque but listless, “Head in the Clouds” is an uninspired attempt to keep rekindling a love match between off-screen sweethearts Charlize Theron and Stuart Townsend while war clouds rumble over Europe from 1933 to 1944.
The movie’s shortcomings might be ascribed to planting one’s head in a romantic-historical cloud-filled land. It would probably be more accurate to surmise that writer-director John Duigan surrendered to formulaic expediency; he certainly remains a slave to laborious and trifling depiction.
Mr. Duigan has enabled Miss Theron to follow her Academy Award-winning year with a lackluster project. This is an indispensable stepping stone for all winners who want to get a head start on the traditional jinx associated with Oscar success, a disillusioning string of duds. Miss Theron may have been misled by the facade of decadent glamour attributed to Gilda Besse, a playgirl of the Western world who disrupts the studious life of Guy (Mr. Townsend), a shy Cambridge undergrad, in 1933. She continues to maintain an emotional advantage for years, despite prolonged separations, a disinclination to answer his letters and the formidable disruptive powers of World War II.
After graduation, Guy becomes a Gilda hanger-on. He follows her to Paris and consents to split duties as lover and employee, working as a photographic assistant in her flourishing portrait business. He joins a similarly compromised member of the Gilda menage, Mia (Penelope Cruz), supposedly a nursing student who moonlights as a stripper (which may or may not explain her mysterious limp), in an idealistic breakout: volunteer service for the Republican government in war-torn Spain.
More often than not, the historical backdrop is summarized in nuggets of narration from the reliably ingenuous Guy. For example, “Civil War had broken out in Spain …” is later enhanced by “The war in Spain was only a rehearsal…. The greater struggle was about to begin.”
The film loses an ongoing struggle against storytelling lethargy. It doesn’t even kick-start the tempo much when Miss Theron generously disrobes or pretends to savor Gilda’s naughty impulses, which include a fleeting afternoon of playing enraged dominatrix.
Ostensibly nonpolitical, Gilda is redeemed in the eyes of predictable plot manipulation by a furtive streak of patriotism, disclosed during the occupation. While consorting with a German officer in her Parisian apartment, she is strategically eavesdropping on his calls for some branch of Allied intelligence or the resistance.
Unfortunately, it isn’t quite the same branch that Guy has been assigned to when he returns to Paris as an undercover agent. Rashly lovelorn, he foists his undying passion on the overbooked heroine. Mr. Duigan gets a genuinely funny brainstorm at this reckless juncture: While Guy and Gilda get reacquainted on the floor, the camera backtracks to reveal… a German uniform in an adjacent room. Not a uniform that’s being worn at the time, but a conspicuous reminder that the lovers are throwing caution to the winds as D-Day approaches.
The persistent droopiness of the show, despite its prurient hot flashes, squanders an intriguing competitive prospect: “Head in the Clouds” might have rivaled “Shining Through” as the funniest espionage romance of World War II permitted to astonish the public in recent years. The raw ingredients are there, but Mr. Duigan doesn’t really have his heart in an outrageous blend of sappiness and derring-do.
It remains to be seen if the co-stars will derive any professional benefit from portraying laughable lovers in a half-baked historical context.
The risks seem greater, though, for Stuart Townsend — who has no stellar leverage at the moment. The role of Guy accentuates nothing but a boyish and yielding personality. It’s probably not advisable for any actor to nurture the impression that he’s a gentleman in waiting to the leading lady.
*
TITLE: “Head in the Clouds”
RATING: R (Occasional nudity and sexual candor, including brief simulations of intercourse; occasional violence with gruesome illustrative details, including depictions of torture)
CREDITS: Written and directed by John Duigan. Cinematography by Paul Sarossy. Production design by Jonathan Lee. Costume design by Mario Davignon. Music by Terry Frewer.
RUNNING TIME: 121 minutes
MAXIMUM RATING: FOUR STARS
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