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A CALL TO SPY
Director: Lydia Dean Pilcher Cast: Sarah Megan Thomas, Stana Katic, Radhika Apte, Linus Roache, Rossif Sutherland, Samuel Roukin, Andrew Richardson, Laila Robins, Joe Doyle, Marc Rissman, Lola Pashalinski MPAA
Rating: Running Time: 2:03 Release Date: 10/2/20 (limited; digital & on-demand) |
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Review by Mark Dujsik | October 2, 2020 The stories of three women involved in spycraft for the United Kingdom during World War II ostensibly come together in A Call to Spy. It's an admirable movie, bringing to light the stories of some mostly unsung heroes of the war, but it's also, unfortunately, a far too familiar one. Screenwriter Sarah Megan Thomas, who also stars, focuses mostly on isolated events and missions featuring these women. We get a sense of their accomplishments and, especially in one case, sacrifices, but in blending these tales together, the actual characters don't matter as much. The movie starts in 1941, after Winston Churchill established the Special Operations Executive (SOE), a secret organization that will use covert acts against Nazi Germany. Vera Atkins (Stana Katic), an SOE official, makes the case that women should be recruited. Virginia Hall (Thomas), an American living in London with unfulfilled dreams of becoming a diplomat, and Noor Inayat Khan (Radhika Apte), a British Muslim woman of American and Indian descent, become the story's primary focus. Most of the action takes place in France, at first in Nazi-occupied territory and later in Paris, before and as Germany expands its hold over the country. Of the three women, Virginia, who has lived with a prosthetic leg since an earlier accident, is the primary figure. She organizes fellow SOE agents in France, recruits new contacts locally, and eventually oversees various sabotage missions. Along the way, she faces occasional sexism and possible betrayal from within her network of spies. The story here mainly concerns the context of these assorted operations, although the backdrop, as more of France falls victim to the Nazis and their anti-Semitic propaganda, is fascinating to observe (It happens so quickly that the characters aren't prepared for the new threats). At home, Vera, who was born Jewish, faces discrimination, too, although the implications of that prejudice are mostly ignored. As for Noor, who excels as a wireless radio operator, she only seems to fulfill one purpose for this story—to make the constant risk these women endured clear. In highlighting the determination and strength of these characters, A Call to Spy serves its purpose of acting as a historical spotlight well enough. As a story that sees these women as more than the sum total of their actions, the movie is too busy with spy games to have time for that. Copyright © 2020 by Mark Dujsik. All rights reserved. |
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(for some strong violence, disturbing images, language, and smoking)
