Resistance

Resistance

It's 1944 and D-Day has failed.  Repulsed from Normandy, the Allies have insult added to injury when the Nazi's decide to implement Operation Sea Lion and invade Great Britain.

In a small Welsh valley, the male inhabitants leave early one morning to disappear into the hills to form a resistance group, leaving the women folk without word of what they've done or what they were planning.  Farmer's wife Sarah (Andrea Riseborough) only finds out when she awakens in an empty bed, but talking with the other women left behind by brothers or sons the general feeling is that the community needs to pull together until such time as they hear anything or their loved ones return.

Before long though, complications arrive in the form of the occupying Nazi force.  A German patrol, led by Major Albrecht (Tom Wlaschiha), occupies a farm within the valley, its mission unknown.  There's an uneasy peace between occupiers and residents but the lines become blurred after the onset of a harsh winter finds the two groups working together to keep the valley going…

This film is based on the critically-acclaimed novel by Owen Sheers, but I hope the novel isn't as unthinking or boring as this film is.  The subject matter is actually quite an interesting one, although there are probably better actual accounts all over mainland Europe.  I think the fascination is simply because as an island nation, we were lucky enough not to have to go through the horrors of a Nazi occupation.

The problem with the film is that not much happens and not much is said, leaving only lots of wistful staring into air - which would be filled in the book, I'm sure, by giving us the characters most inner thoughts but on celluloid gives us nothing.  I don't have a problem with the soldiers being garrisoned in the valley with no purpose, that's the way it is with soldiers.  I also don't have an issue with the actions of the women either at the start or the end.  It's just that the script doesn't really do very much at all.

I guess you could look upon it as a rather more passive resistance by those who are unwilling, unsuited or unequipped to make active resistance with the women's initial hostility worn down by more practical needs.  There's also the obligatory 'will they/won't they' plotline between Sarah and Albrecht, but it doesn't even seem that tangible.  There's no outright resistance to the Nazi's though as only one shot is fired and even that is aimed at a horse.

Michael Sheen appears in the film in a couple of scenes but probably shouldn't have bothered.  His first appearance is useful in setting up where the film might go, but then it peters out and his second appearance adds nothing to the film at all.  

A shame really, but unless you like Nazi's and wistful glances then there's not much this film actually has to offer that you couldn't find better elsewhere.