Head in the Clouds is a 2004 British-Canadian romantic drama film set over a period of time before and during World War II. It stars Charlize Theron, Stuart Townsend, and Penélope Cruz.
Gilda Bessé (Theron) is a wealthy (and notorious) free spirit, who drops into the life of Guy Malyon (Townsend), a buttoned-down, working class student at University of Cambridge. Despite that she's 'involved' (none-too seriously - or faithfully) with one of the professors, the two become fast friends and occasional lovers. They're only in sporadic contact with each other for the first few years, until ultimately Guy and Gilda reunited in Paris in the 1930s.
Gilda, a photographer now by trade, has now as a roommate her beautiful assistant/model Mia (Cruz), a Spanish national. Ever the bohemian, she wishes for the trio nothing more than to enjoy Paris carefree in their unusual living arrangement, and to ignore the rise of fascism in Europe. Mia, however, cannot resist the call to assist her country in the Spanish Civil War, and neither can Guy.
Guy and Gilda's paths cross once more during World War II, with her still in Paris, and now the lover of a ruthless Nazi officer. But is there more to it than that?
This movie contains examples of:
- Blaming the Victim: Discussed as Gilda rejects Guy's suggesting of reporting Lucien to the police for beating Mia, because she's a stripper and so they would say she'd brought it on herself.
- Bury Your Disabled: Mia has an injured leg that makes her limp, and dies in the Spanish Civil War. She was the film's only disabled character.
- Bury Your Gays: Gilda, along with Mia, turn out to both be bisexual women who had a relationship once. Neither survives the film, while their straight male love interest Guy lives.
- Les Collaborateurs: Gilda is wrongly accused of collaborting with the Germans as she dates them. She's actually gaining intelligence for the British and French through doing so.
- Coming and Going: The very day after she's slept with Guy, Mia is killed when the ambulance she's in drives over a landmine.
- Disposable Love Interest: When Guy and Gilda met again in Paris, besides living with Mia, Gilda is also living with a lover, whom she quickly discards when Guy moves in.
- Domestic Abuse: Mia is beaten with a crop by Lucien while they're dating, leaving marks on her back.
- Downer Ending: Both Gilda and Mia end up dying during wartime. Guy is left alone in Gilda's ransacked apartment, reading her last letter to him.
- Dream-Crushing Handicap: Mia's dream of being a dancer ended due to her leg getting injured in her youth.
- Ethical Slut: Gilda and Mia surely fit the definition, sleeping around with men (and each other) while still also being good people. Mia in particular jumps to aid her native Spain after the Spanish Civil War breaks out while Gilda doesn't want to know about any wars, and even then Gilda later changes her mind around that, aiding the French Resistance while endangering herself doing so by sleeping with German officers to get information. Ultimately both of them lose their lives while doing so.
- The Flapper: Though she's introduced in 1933, Gilda has a bob haircut, flapper style dress and hedonistic lifestyle. She definitely enjoys drinking, dancing, listening to jazz and casual sex.
- Forceful Kiss: When they reunite, Guy forcefully kisses Gilda, who at first resists this but then reciprocates.
- Gay Paree: Gilda lives in Paris, and is very much enamoured with the stereotypical bohemian side of the city.
- The Hedonist: Gilda wishes for nothing more than to enjoy the pleasures of life carefree, at first anyway.
- Historical Domain Character: Django Reinhardt appears at some point. His actor (John Jorgenson, a gypsy jazz musician like Django) was praised for replicating Django's playing down to a T.
- Honey Trap: Gilda works for British intelligence and the French Resistance through dating German officers, with her relationships providing her the means to glean information from them.
- Irony: Gilda resists helping in the war as long as she can, as it would distract her from the pleasures of Paris, and she even takes a Nazi Major as her lover. As it turns out, Gilda joined the Resistance a few years earlier, but after the end of the occupation of Paris, she was captured by a mob of locals, who had long regarded her as a Nazi sympathizer and traitor, and killed.
- Jack Bauer Interrogation Technique: The Gestapo tortures French Resistance prisoners to get information.
- Killed Offscreen:
- Mia gets killed when her ambulance is hit by a land mine. All that the audience (and Guy) is able to hear is the sound of the mine going off in the distance, immediately cutting to her tomb.
- Gilda is taken captive by a mob intent on avenging the deaths of their loved ones and killed off-camera by a member of the mob.
- Lady in Red: Mia favors wearing
◊ a lot◊ of red,◊ befitting her status as a Latin Lover, often acting sultry and work as a stripper. - Latin Lover: Mia is a sultry, beautiful, very moody Spanish woman (played by Penélope Cruz, natch). It makes her stand out even more when she's alongside the buttoned-down Guy. Both he and Gilda find her quite attractive.
- Lipstick Lesbian: Gilda and Mia dress in very beautiful dresses most of the time, their hair styled nicely, along with wearing jewelry. They turn out to be bisexuals, having been lovers before in the past while they also both have relationships with Guy, among other men.
- Making Love in All the Wrong Places:
- Guy and Gilda's first time is on a pool table.
- Upon reuniting, they have sex on the floor in her apartment.
- A Minor Kidroduction: The film's prologue has a 14-year-old Gilda being told by a fortune teller that the life line on her palm doesn't extend past the age of 34. This is proven correct.
- Modesty Bedsheet: Gilda covers herself and Guy too with a blanket when they first have sex. It stays on when they wake up together the next morning.
- Ms. Fanservice:
- Gilda (Charlize Theron), who gushes out her good looks through the film, even getting topless while bathing with Guy.
- Mia (Penélope Cruz) is no slouch either, dressing in lush, sultry dresses, sometimes even stripping down to a nightie. Once she also does a striptease as Guy and Gilda watch. Even when she changes to more muted clothing after going to help in the war, her new dresses still show a lot of her cleavage.
- Pay Evil unto Evil: Gilda beats Lucien up for having beaten Mia, as she knows that nothing will happen to him over it otherwise as he's got powerful friends while Mia's working as a stripper means the police would blame her for it.
- Queer Establishing Moment: After it's strongly hinted beforehand, Mia confesses just prior to having sex with Guy that she was lovers before with Gilda.
- Really Gets Around: Gilda and Mia sleep with a lot of other people, including each other in the past, then also Guy.
- Refusal of the Call: While Guy and Mia are anxious to participate in the Spanish Civil War, Gilda however has no interest in anything that might disrupt her life of luxury, and pleads with the two to ignore the conflict, which they in turn refuse.
- La Résistance: Guy's mission during World War II is to coordinate various French Resistance attacks in support of D-Day for the British SIS.
- Secret Police: Franz Bietrich, the German officer whom Gilda dates to get intelligence, works with the Gestapo in Paris. As a result, she tips off the French Resistance about their operations where possible.
- Significant Wardrobe Shift: While she's living a bohemian lifestyle alongside Gilda in Paris, Mia wears lush, exuberant dresses, and mostly in red. When she makes the decision to leave that lifestyle behind and help in the war effort, she starts to dress more modestly. While that may be an obvious and understandable side effect of the dire conditions of the war, she also drops the red clothing entirely, instead dressing in muted colors, such as pale, light browns.
- Star-Crossed Lovers: Guy and Gilda seem doomed to be kept apart, no matter how hard they struggle to be together.
- Sweet Polly Oliver: Gilda sneaks out of Cambridge University dressed as a man so Guy won't get in trouble over her being in his room.
- Think Unsexy Thoughts: Gilda instructs Guy "Think Sunday school" when they first have sex so he lasts longer.
- Two-Person Pool Party: Guy and Gilda, while taking a bath together, end up having sex.
- Wall Bang Her: Guy eats Gilda out up against her wardrobe.
- What Measure Is a Mook?: Guy shoots a Nationalist enemy soldier during an ambush in the Spanish Civil War, getting the locket he was carrying afterward with a photo of a pretty young woman. He muses on who she is to him, and thinks she'll miss his coming home, poignantly realizing that even a random enemy is still a human being with loved ones.
- You Can Leave Your Hat On: Mia does a striptease for Guy and Gilda (but she isn't shown taking everything off). It turns out that she does this professionally as well, working as a stripper while in Paris.
