Allied is a 2016 romantic thriller film directed by Robert Zemeckis and written by Steven Knight. It stars Brad Pitt as a Canadian intelligence officer and Marion Cotillard as a French Resistance fighter and collaborator, who fall in love during a mission in Casablanca. Jared Harris, Simon McBurney and Lizzy Caplan also star.
Principal photography began in February 2016 in London. The film was released in the United States on November 23, 2016 by Paramount Pictures, received mixed reviews from critics, although Pitt and particularly Cotillard's performances were praised, and grossed $119 million worldwide. It received an Academy Award nomination for Best Costume Design.
Maps, Directions, and Place Reviews
Plot
In 1942 during World War II, Royal Canadian Air Force intelligence officer Max Vatan travels to Casablanca in Morocco to assassinate the German ambassador. He is partnered with a French Resistance fighter named Marianne Beauséjour, who had escaped from France after her resistance group was compromised and killed.
The two pose as a married couple and grow close, despite agreeing that in their line of work feelings can get people killed. Marianne, who is trusted by the Germans, secures Max an invitation to the party where they plan to conduct the assassination. On the day itself, they have sex inside a car in the middle of a desert sandstorm, knowing that they might not survive. However, the mission goes well and they both escape. Max asks Marianne to come with him to London and be his wife. The two get married, settle down in Hampstead, and have a baby girl named Anna.
A year later, Max learns from the Special Operations Executive that Marianne is suspected of being a German spy, having adopted her identity after the real Marianne was killed in France. In order to test their suspicions, SOE run a 'blue dye' operation: Max is ordered to write down a piece of false intelligence at home, where Marianne can find it. If the information is picked up from intercepted German transmissions, Max must personally execute her, or be hanged for treason. Max is told otherwise to act normally.
Defying orders, Max visits a former colleague named Guy Sangster who knew Marianne but, blind from a wartime injury, cannot confirm her identity. He reveals that the resistance fighter Paul Delamare worked with Marianne in France and would be able to identify her. Max seeks out a young pilot named Adam Hunter, gives him a picture of his wife, and instructs him to ask Delamare whether she really is Marianne. However, the following night, Max's commanding officer Frank Heslop informs him that Hunter was killed while waiting on the ground for the answer. He also hears that the whole operation might be a test, before he is given a big job in the run up to D-Day.
The following night Max takes the place of a Lysander pilot and flies to France to meet with Delamare, who, it transpires, is being held at the local police station. Max and the resistance break into the jail to confront Delamare. He is drunk, but remembers that Marianne was a beautiful pianist.
Back in England, Max takes Marianne to a local pub and demands she play the piano. Marianne cannot play, and admits she is a spy. She claims her feelings for Max are genuine and that she and her child were being threatened by German spies in London, including the woman who lives around the corner and often looks after Anna.
Max, unwilling to kill his wife, tells her they need to leave before the SOE catches them. He kills Marianne's handlers and tries to flee the country via airplane, but Heslop intercepts them before they can escape. Marianne tells Max that she loves him, asks him to take care of Anna, then shoots herself. Heslop orders the soldiers present to report that Max executed Marianne as per his orders, so that Max himself will not be punished.
After the war, Max moves to the ranch in Medicine Hat, Alberta, Canada, that was always his ambition, and raises Anna. The film ends with Marianne reading the letter that she had earlier written to her daughter, anticipating that one day her real identity would be uncovered.
Office Allied Video
Cast
- Brad Pitt as Wing Commander Max Vatan
- Marion Cotillard as Marianne Beauséjour
- Jared Harris as Colonel Frank Heslop
- Matthew Goode as Group Captain Guy Sangster
- Lizzy Caplan as Pilot Officer Bridget Vatan, Max's sister
- Anton Lesser as Emmanuel Lombard
- August Diehl as Hobar
- Camille Cottin as Monique
- Charlotte Hope as Louise
- Marion Bailey as Mrs. Sinclair
- Simon McBurney as S.O.E. Official
- Daniel Betts as Flight Lieutenant George Kavanagh
- Thierry Frémont as Paul Delamare
Production
Pre-production
On February 6, 2015, Paramount Pictures and New Regency announced that Robert Zemeckis was to direct an untitled World War II romantic thriller, in which Brad Pitt would star. Steven Knight wrote the original script, in development by Graham King's GK Films, which now would be produced by ImageMovers' Zemeckis and Steve Starkey along with King. On June 8, 2015, Marion Cotillard was cast to play a spy along with Pitt, who fall in love during a mission to kill a German official. In August 2015, Knight said that the film would be based on a true story told to him at the age of 21, and also that the shooting would start in January 2016. On January 28, 2016, Jared Harris joined the film. On March 8, 2016, Lizzy Caplan was cast to play Pitt's sister. Executive producers on the film would be Knight, Jack Rapke, Patrick McCormick and Denis O'Sullivan. Alan Silvestri composed the music.
Filming
Principal photography on the film began in February 2016 in London. In May 2016 scenes set in Casablanca were shot in Gran Canaria, Canary Islands.
Release
Paramount Pictures released the film on Wednesday, November 23, 2016.
Box office
Allied grossed $40.1 million in the United States and Canada and $79.4 million in other countries for a worldwide total of $119.5 million, against a production budget of $85 million.
Allied opened alongside Moana, Rules Don't Apply and Bad Santa 2 and was expected to gross around $15 million in its opening weekend and $20-25 million over its first five days from 3,160 theaters. The film ended up grossing $12.7 million in its opening weekend (a five-day total of $17.7 million), finishing 4th at the box office.
Critical response
On review aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes, Allied has an approval rating of 62% based on 200 reviews, with a weighted average of 6.2/10. The site's critical consensus reads, "Allied has its moments, but doesn't quite achieve epic wartime romance status - a disappointment made more profound by the dazzling talent assembled on either side of the camera." Metacritic reports a normallized score of 60 out of 100, based on 44 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B", on an A+ to F scale.
Writing for Deadline.com, Pete Hammond stated that "Screenwriter Steven Knight has crafted a nifty story that isn't just a mere imitation of something you could imagine Ingrid Bergman and William Holden doing, even though wearing a certain hat in one scene Cotillard looks exactly like Bergman in the 1943 classic Casablanca. This one has all the requisite trappings including Nazis, bombed-out cities, foreign intrigue and impossibly good-looking stars."
Stephanie Zacharek of TIME Magazine, stated that "Even within this highly synthetic world, Pitt and Cotillard give sturdy, coded performances that feel naturalistic, not phony: They understand clearly that their chief mission is to tap the tradition of melodrama, and they take it seriously. Somehow, almost incomprehensibly, it all works. Allied looks old but smells new, and the scent is heady." Eric Eisenberg from CinemaBlend gave the film 4 out of 5 stars, writing, "Pitt is given what can be called the meatier part, as Max's raw nerves are fully exposed throughout the film as he tries to learn the truth about his wife -- but Cotillard's part is the more subtle and challenging, perfectly engulfing Marianne with an enigmatic air that perpetually keeps the audience guessing. They're heavy turns, but Pitt and Cotillard prove again why they're two of the best in the business."
Rex Reed from New York Observer, gave the film 4 out of 4 stars saying, "Beautiful, bold and blazing with sex and suspense, Allied is a gorgeously photographed, intensely romantic, action-packed film by the great director Robert Zemeckis with two titanic star performances by Brad Pitt and Marion Cotillard that delivers something for everyone. If you love classic movies and their potential to sweep you up into a world outside of your own experience, this one will rock your world."
Home media
Allied was released on Digital HD on February 14, 2017 and on Blu-ray and DVD on February 28, 2017.
Accolades
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