Product Details

• Actors: Charlize Theron, Stuart Townsend, Penélope Cruz, Thomas Kretschmann, Steven Berkoff
• Directors: John Duigan
• Writers: John Duigan
• Producers: Alain Pancrazi, André Rouleau, Bertil Ohlsson, James Simpson, Jason Piette
• Format: AC-3, Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, DVD, Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC
• Language: English, French, German, Spanish
• Subtitles: English
• Region: Region 1 encoding (US and Canada only)
  PLEASE NOTE: Some Region 1 DVDs may contain Regional Coding Enhancement (RCE). Some, but not all, of our international customers have had problems playing these enhanced discs on what are called "region-free" DVD players. For more information on RCE, click here.
• Aspect Ratio: 2.35:1
• Number of discs: 1
• Rating: R (Restricted)
• Studio: Sony Pictures
• DVD Release Date: January 25, 2005
• Run Time: 132 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 3.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (38 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B0006J27WO
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #29,380 in Movies & TV (See Bestsellers in Movies & TV)
• For more information about "Head in the Clouds" visit the Internet Movie Database (IMDb)

Editorial Reviews

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

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.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars The Party's Over, November 25, 2005

By	Vince Perrin "Byline" (Stockton, CA USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

"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.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars WOW, April 11, 2006

By	Laura Of The Undead (Ohio) - See all my reviews

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.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Beautiful: A work of poetry, June 2, 2005

By	Jacqueline Marcus (Hanalei, Kauai USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

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.