Charlotte Gray

If there's one thing that old movies have taught us, it's that war is really, really romantic. In fact, if the movies are telling us the truth, then there's pretty much nothing better than killing Nazis for bringing a young man and woman together for what the ancient Greeks called "nookie time." Charlotte Gray takes up this somewhat unfashionable premise by presenting a movie that could have been released in 1945, except for the Panavision cameras and super-saturated color film. Cate Blanchett plays a woman whose name just happens to be the same as the title of the movie, and Billy Crudup plays a guy whose cheekbones are so sharp they could cut through Bill O'Reilly's stony heart. Together, they join the French resistance and fall in love and then have lots of other feelings, which they express by staring just past the camera and emoting. It gets a little dull, and the plot is pretty standard, but it's a pretty movie with pretty people, and if you're in the mood for an old-fashioned romance it's probably a much better choice than Black Hawk Down. I mean, Black Hawk Down is a much better movie, but nobody seems to fall in love during it, in spite of the fact that it takes place in the middle of a war. Go figure.