I knew about this movie just few weeks ago when I saw the trailer and was a bit intrigued by the seemed to be interesting premise. But as I knew more and more, I became a bit doubtful as it did looked to be a more drama/romance kind of movie rather than the suspenseful thriller movie. Nevertheless, when my wife told me that she was informed about how good this movie was, we decided to watch it anyway yesterday noon at Cinemaxx in Plaza Semanggi since we had not been there for a while. Unfortunately, we did not have good experience due to the rather non-sympathetic way of security checking on our bags and asking us to keep our take-away lunch. Anyway our mood was a bit ruined so we may not have the best kind of image watching it. But, as the usual saying, the show must go on. So here goes my views about the movie.
Brief Story Line
Story started with the scene of Canadian agent Max Savan (Brad Pitt - star of many movies to his credit) reached French Morocco and was given the task of coordinating with a fellow French agent named Marianne Beausejour (Marion Cotillard - The Immigrant, The Dark Knight Rises etc) for assassinating German ambassador during the World War 2. His cover was being the husband of Marianne from Paris. To convince Marianne's friends, Max had to exercise his accent again since he did not sound like he came from Paris. In addition, they had to make sure their cover was intact in front of their neighbors who loved to stalk.
During the preparation for such mission, Max and Marianne built a more intimate relationship as they had to keep up their performance by learning a bit about each other's personal life. Especially Marianne who always try to keep her emotions real in order to survive in the world of espionage. Meanwhile Max was always so serious about keeping their relationship normal and concentrate at the job. However, due to the quite long time required to enable them having the opportunity to complete their assignment, finally they were really attracted of one another and their relationship became more romantic. Until finally they got the chance to be at the function where the ambassador was there.
After successfully completed this assignment, Max asked Marianne to be his wife and return with him to London. Through lots of challenges including verification by V section where Marianne used to be part of that section in France, they finally got their wish despite the complains from Max's superior Frank (Jared Harris - Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows, Lincoln etc). He believed that marriage based on this kind of on the field relationship was always dangerous.
A year later, Max, Marianne and their daughter Anna was living in Hampstead, London where Max still working under Frank and Marianne became a full house wife. One day, he was called to duty by Frank to meet a high ranked official and he was shocked of the information he was given. According to the reliable sources, Marianne was suspected as a German spy. Even though Max could not believe it, being a government agent, he was tasked to provide some useless information to see if Marianne would share that knowledge to the Germans. If it was true that she was an agent, Max had to kill Marianne himself, otherwise they both would be killed by the army.
So was everything true? Was Marianne really the German spy? Could she be so good in faking her feelings towards Max and could Max had been so blind? If she was truly German spy, could Max kill the love of his life? Find them all by watching the story unfolded little by little, including Max efforts to find out about the suspicion on Marianne.
End of Brief Story Line
Wow, almost the first half of the movie was moving at a very slow pace. The build up of the Max and Marianne's relationship felt too long. It was probably due to our mood's not really good, but I think even if our mood was good, we would still feel it too slow. I personally think Robert Zemeckis put too much emphasis on this romantic build up. It would have been nice if this part was shorten but the thriller part was longer. Zemeckis directed movies which included Back to the Future trilogy, Who Framed Roger Rabbit, The Polar Express, Beowulf and many others seemed to have some computer special effects, but also some great dramas like Forrest Gump and Cast Away which focused on more on the acting. This could be the reason for him to put the emphasis on making the relationship between Max and Marianne more believable.
Apart from the very long part in the first half, the second half of the movie itself was actually good, with the audience kept on guessing on whether Marianne was indeed the German spy and the emotional conflict of Max. It was indeed these parts that were making us intrigued. There was not a lot of special effects in here, but the costumes made for the 1940s set were pretty good. It reminded me of the old classic movie Cassablanca which actually was the place where Max and Marianne stayed. The actions were pretty decent and not a lot, as the regular thriller would be.
The ending of the movie probably could have been guessed, but it did give a good closure for us who have been waiting to see what it would have been. I myself was satisfied with the ending as there was no cliffhanger and no different interpretation that audience could have. In the end, the movie felt more like a drama romance with thriller as the background, rather than a thriller with romance background.
So if you are ok with watching through the entire 2+ hours movie of such genre, then I believe you would enjoy this movie. However, if you prefer a movie with more thriller, then other movies would probably be more to your liking. As I normally would say, the choice is yours.
Happy watching!
Mike's movie moments rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars
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