The film begins with General George Patton (Ed Harris) walking onto a stage in France to address a crowd of beleaguered U.S. soldiers. It’s unclear whether the war has just ended or if he’s rallying moral in front of a big battle. At any rate, he begins speaking about a young Frenchman he’s just met who is certain to inspire even the dourest lover of freedom. His tale lasts for two long, tedious hours.
Resistance tells a story that is very much worth telling but unfortunately tells it in a near-maddening “juvenile nonfiction” kind of way. The true account of world-famous mime Marcel Marceau (phoned in by Jessie Eisenberg) as a member of the French resistance during World War II should be utterly fascinating but is somehow made corny and uninspiring. As is, Resistance does no justice whatsoever to the legacy of a hero and the hundreds of Jewish children he helped smuggle to safety.
Condensing an entire life into a manageable runtime is something many, maybe even most, biopics struggle with. In the interest of time and flow, composite characters are created and confrontations are invented, but when done correctly, this can still result in an entertaining primer on the life of an interesting individual. Resistance takes these genre side-effects a step further by mentioning only the most rudimentary of historical events, and then making the rest up completely.
Did Marcel Marceau smuggle Jewish children out of France? Yes. Was the fanatical Nazi Klaus Barbie (known as the “Butcher of Lyon,” played convincingly by Matthias Schweighöfer) in charge of rounding up and torturing Jews and members of La Résistance at the same time and in the same city? Yes. From there, however, Resistance plays mostly in vagueries and melodramatic conjecture. As rewarding as it may be to see Marceau light a Nazi soldier on fire in the middle of a crowded Lyon street carnival, I have my doubts about whether it actually happened. It doesn’t have to be true to be entertaining, but it does have to be plausible and fit within the characterization presented.
What I can’t get over about Resistance is that writer/director Jonathan Jakubowicz took an immensely interesting story and turned it into mush. Imagine if the parallel sagas of Marceau the real-life hero and Barbie the real-life villain had been told with an eye towards definable tension, intrigue, and character development instead of the watered-down, borderline teen soap opera we’re given. There’s already an R rating attached – by god use it to make something interesting.
James is a writer, record collector, wrestling nerd, and tabletop gamer living with his family in Asheville, North Carolina. He is a member of the Southeastern Film Critics Association, the North Carolina Film Critics Association, and contributes to The Daily Orca, Razorcake Magazine, Mountain Xpress, and Asheville Movies.