Alone in Berlin, a true WWII story, is more dreary than it should be

REVIEW: Stoic, straight-bat scripting and direction can make Alone in Berlin seem more dreary than it really should be.

ALONE IN BERLIN (M)

Director: Vincent Perez (The Secret)

Starring: Brendan Gleeson, Emma Thompson, Daniel Bruhl, Mikael Persbrandt.

Rating: Two-and-a-half stars

Stationery got them moving

THIS middling WWII drama is the true story of Otto and Elise Hampel, an everyday German couple who forged a brave resistance to the Nazis after the death of their son on the battlefields of France.

The Hampels have been renamed The Quangels here, which to be honest, was not all that necessary an alteration to the telling of this tale. What does matter is that the defiant duo are very well portrayed with modest assurance by a well-cast Brendan Gleeson and Emma Thompson.

Emma Thompson portrays Anna Quangel beautifully in Alone in Berlin.

When the unassuming Quangels take it upon themselves to take a stand against the barbarism of Hitler’s Third Reich, they do so in a most unusual way.

Operating in strict secrecy, the pair distribute anti-Nazi propaganda all over their home city of Berlin in the form of incendiary postcards.

While Otto slyly refers to their two-person movement as “putting sand into the machine,” an unimpressed police inspector (another measured effort from Daniel Bruhl) closes in with a vengeful focus.

Brendan Gleeson who portrays Hans Quangel with an anti-Nazi postcard.

Novelist Hans Falluda originally published his account of the Hampels’ heroic crusade in 1947, but it wasn’t until recently a best-selling English translation of the book brought their exploits to wider attention.

Unfortunately, the relatively sedate nature of the couple’s clandestine operations is not all that cinematic, and stoic, straight-bat scripting and direction can make the film seem more dreary than it really should be.

Originally published as Alone in Berlin, a true WWII story, is more dreary than it should be