Product: Head in the Clouds (2004)
Rating: 2.0
A beautiful pastiche of cliches
First of all, what this movie has going for it: beautiful and handsome actors, great cinematography from breathtaking locations such as Cambridge and Paris, and the exquisite clothing that its protagonists wear except during juicy sex scenes. If this is what you seek in a movie, I heartily recommend it to you.What this movie doesn't have going for it: a plot that is so chock full of cliches that by the end of the movie one is ready to jump out of one's chair in surprise should the plot include a non-cliche twist. Among the cliches are a sadomasochistic gestapo officer, a shy working-class student on a scholarship it at Cambridge, a spoiled daughter of a very wealthy family, whose mother tragically dies a suicide, living a very loose life, lovers meeting in Paris, Spanish right-wingers blowing perfidiously blowing up an ambulance, people heroically joining the anti-Nazi resistance, a love triangle, and on and on.The cliches in this movie are so numerous, that I suspect that the whoever is responsible for the plot first put together all the cliches the movie should contain, and then tried to wrap a plot around them. In any event, the plot is so stale that I suspect it may have been intended as a parody of the genre. But even sappiness has its limits. The breakneck speed of the plot is such that the actors don't seem to have an emotional connection to their roles but rather to be rushing about hurling one cliche after another onto the screen.If you are among those who expect movies to be thoughtful, cause you to think, or confront you with the unexpected, I can only encourage you to go elsewhere.