Resistance

Available to stream.

Written and directed by Jonathan Jakubowicz, Resistance tells the little known story of French actor and mime Marcel Marceau’s time in the French resistance during the 2nd World War, where he and his cousin Georges helped over 400 Jewish children escape Nazi occupied France into neutral Switzerland.

This is a remarkable story and certainly one I had no idea about, but this film hits a common problem when telling stories like this, it’s very hard to do such an incredible and emotional story justice.

Jesse Eisenberg stars as Marceau and is at his best when portraying him “performing” especially as he tries to bond with terrified children ripped from everything they know and is solid throughout if you are happy to ignore the accent. There are good performances around him, Clemence Poesy as Emma in particular captures the harsh realities of the world they find themselves in and Matthias Schweighofer does a good job of portraying the butcher of Lyon, Klaus Barbie.

While Resistance for me does hit more than it misses, it does miss a little, especially in what felt like a rushed final act through the Alps and an odd bit of Marceau performance theater for the troops!

That said the story is both worth telling and seeing and while it won’t go down as a great it does a more than serviceable job of sharing a fascinating, little know and incredible story of the early life of the worlds “most important mime”.