I believe that Robert Zemeckis conceived ‘Allied‘ (2016) as sort of an homage to one of my most beloved films – Michael Curtiz’s ‘Casablanca’ (1942). The first part of the action takes place exactly in 1942 in Casablanca and the atmosphere is so similar that I expected Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman to sit at one of the neighboring tables to the ones occupied by the heroes played by Brad Pitt and Marion Cotillard. Later a key scene quotes the defiant singing of the Marseillese in a bar full of German soldiers. Last, the final scene takes place at an airport. ‘Allied‘, of course, has a completely different plot, and the story will still take us to London during the bombings and to still occupied France towards the end of the war. Zemeckis is behind several great cinematic successes of the last three decades. Here he ‘just’ manages to make a good film. Are the days of romance combined with espionage stories set during World War II gone? I don’t think that’s the problem, but rather a few too many historical errors in the script and a surprising (especially for Zemeckis) lack of inspiration in working with the actors.
In the opening scene of ‘Allied‘, Max Vatan, the film’s Canadian hero, is parachuted into the desert. His mission is to reach Casablanca where he will contact the French agent Marianne Beauséjour, with the mission to assassinate the German ambassador. The two must disguise themselves as husband and wife. Disguise turns into attraction which turns into love. After completing the mission, arrived in London, the two will get married and have a child. However, the idyllic love story risks turning into a drama combined with a spy story in the context of the war, when Marianne is suspected of being a German spy. How will the love between the two protagonists endure? Who is really Marianne, the woman who had conquered Max, with whom he had lived an intense love, with whom he had founded a family?
Steven Knight‘s screenplay has some major problems in the credibility of the espionage story, starting with the motives of the first act of sabotage, passing through the methods of British counter-espionage and with the ending. All this, however, is perhaps less important, because the relationship between the man and the woman who meet and fall in love under the tense conditions of war and of their clandestine activities is well written and psychologically justified. Robert Zemeckis is known as a director who picks the best actors and directs them with finesse and attention to detail. That happens here as well, and I can’t even say that Brad Pitt and Marion Cotillard are doing bad roles, but something is not working in the relationship between the two. The supposed passion in the story does not cross the screen. We are left with the pleasure of seeing Brad and Marion together, with a story interesting enough to keep us on our seats throughout the entire film, with Alan Silvestri‘s overwhelming music and compelling and spectacular description (even if some details are not are very accurate) of the atmosphere in wartime Casablanca and London. For the passion part we have the memory of the scenes with Humphrey Boggart and Ingrid Bergman.