Product Description

As war clouds gather over Europe, a free-spirited socialite and her two lovers live a life of pleasure and privilege until the Spanish Civil War tears them apart. Starring Charlize Theron and Penelope Cruz.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #32440 in DVD
• Brand: SONY PICTURES HOME ENT
• Released on: 2005-01-25
• Rating: R (Restricted)
• Aspect ratio: 2.35:1
• Formats: AC-3, Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, DVD, Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC
• Original language: English, French, German, Spanish
• Subtitled in: English
• Number of discs: 1
• Dimensions: .25 pounds
• Running time: 132 minutes

Amazon.com
If movies were solely about the cheap pleasure of watching gorgeous people make grand gestures in epic circumstances--because, sure, sometimes movies are--director/screenwriter John Duigan's goopy, obvious, overwrought contemplation of how global unrest really messes with your love life would be Oscar-worthy. Charlize Theron, Stuart Townsend, and Penelope Cruz are headstrong 1930s playthings who each discover that they need to pull their attractive heads out of their inviting behinds if they're going to play a part in stopping the spread of European fascism. Charlize is socialite Gilda, who ensnares both brooding, Cambridge-educated Irishman Townsend and Spanish rebel Cruz (who is particularly ill-defined) in a love triangle while seemingly caring not a whit for the imminent goosesteps of the Nazis. Charlize wears a lot of fabulous outfits, and she and real-life paramour Townsend do impetuous things like sport fedoras while romping in a milky-white bathtub; Cruz, meanwhile, performs a passionate impromptu striptease. Hey, there are worse ways to be entertained. Unfortunately, you don't really give a damn about any of them, and you can predict what's going to happen to all of them well before it actually does. It's an efficient, glamorous, hokey, ultimately downbeat time-killer for anyone willing to spend two hours trying to decide which of the doe-eyed trio you'd save from destruction first. --Steve Wiecking

Customer Reviews

The Party's Over
"Head in the Clouds" is Charlize Theron's during World War II. While her male and female lovers (Stuart Townsend, Penelope Cruz) fret about fascism in Spain and the collapse of The Third Republic, Charlize lives for the pleasures she savors. As Europe is overtaken by war, Theron adapts to whatever will keep her in cafe society, which in occupied Paris means sleeping with Nazis. Her lovers decamp for Spain to fight Franco and Theron moves in with a kindly torturer. Her English lover returns as a resistance fighter and time runs out for our darling dilettante.

Period music, locations, costumes and sets are all lovingly recreated. That can't be said for the script. The actors are beautiful until they start to speak. Cruz is the only one who conveys any depth or conviction. This movie, if you can't tell by now, ends badly for everyone. Crucial information is withheld to provide a surprise ending that fails to deliver. The good intentions of "Head in the Clouds" make its failures more noticeable. You want to like this movie but its surfaces won't let you.

WOW
I love love love this movie. I found it for $2.50 at Dollar General and I feel like going back there and paying more. It has everything from War, Love, Sex, & Death, what more could an Indie girl ask for? This is such an Oscar worthy movie. If I, a 17 year old, can appreciate a movie like this then I believe everyone can. I can't give this movie enough praise.

Beautiful: A work of poetry
I've read the negative reviews on this film, which convinces me that film critics are so used to the garbage of cheap sex and violence that they can't recognize a diamond in the rust if they tried.

"Head in the Clouds" kept me there every second of the way. Maybe that's because I have the sensibilities of a poet and I'm a philosophy teacher. Maybe this film will not appeal to morons, but it will appeal to intellectuals and artists. So, yes, it's not for everyone. One has to have a degree of intelligence and the passions of a poet to see the value of this film.

As for Stuart Townsend and Charlize Theron, I thought Stuart Townsend MADE this film come to life. He was brilliant! And absolutely convincing in every single second of this film. And Theron was equally captivating.

Let's remember, folks, the critics dumped on "Doctor Zhivago". Now they look like the fools that they are -- because everyone knows it's a work of genius and a classic. Maybe "Head in the Clouds" isn't quite Zhivago, but it deserves praise and certainly does NOT deserve to be judged by swine and morons.