The Partisan: Morgane Polanski is Lost in a Botched Story of a Resistance Heroine

By John Kirk

Rating: C

What Would Ian Fleming Think?

You want to love The Partisan. It has all the ingredients for a classic tale of espionage set in World War II.

Even better? It’s based on the real-life adventures of Polish SOE operative, Krystyna Skarbek, who operated behind enemy lines from 1941 up. It takes an incredible character to do that type of work and clearly be damn good at it.

Wait. It gets better than that. It turns out that not only was she Winston Churchill’s favourite spy, she even was rumoured to have met Ian Fleming. Moreover, she was to have provided the inspiration for the James Bond character, Vesper Lynd.

Like I said, you want to love this film. The problem? You can’t. In my opinion, I think Fleming might have a few words to say about it too.

Morgane Polanski plays a real-life WWII espionage agent in The Partisan.

Here’s the official synopsis:

“A Polish spy who works for the British during the Second World War. After a betrayal, she is compromised in Warsaw and finds herself in a murky world of treachery.”

It’s a bit of a brief synopsis, but the overall problem with this film is that its storyline lumbers lackadaisically from one scene to the next, haphazardly arranging the events and details of Krystyna’s first and last mission in a jumble of often confusing dramatic sequences.

Instead of starting with a reason for why she was a perfect candidate for espionage, the film starts with a faux interrogation by her SOE bosses that makes the viewer scratch their heads in confusion.

It's sad because Skarbek’s character is skillfully brought to life by Morgane Polanski (yes, daughter of THAT Polanski). The character she presents is recklessly brave, with an abnormal psychology profile, and ruthlessly committed to thwarting and punishing Nazis.

She is an extreme personality and Polanski’s portrayal shows a deep understanding of what this heroic character must have been like. Her performance keeps the viewer interested and wanting to learn more.

But it’s not enough. The exploits of this heroic agent seem to be the wrong ones chosen, or are so loosely described that this incredible character is wasted in her own story. Likewise, with her cast. Sometimes we don’t even know their names, as is the case with her handler, whose nom de guerre is simply “Trenchcoat” played by acting legend, Malcolm McDowell.

There are isolated moments of high drama or intense battle scenes with the French Resistance, that are wonderfully depicted. Without detailed historical context though, they are isolated moments of this incredible historical woman’s life that don’t get the proper respect they deserve.

Show the pain, the grit, the desperate choices Krystyna has to make, but also show why they matter in that moment to her. There is very little connection between the audience and Skarbek, and that’s a massive oversight, not just for the success of the film but also in terms of respecting the legacy of this World War Two heroine.

There’s just so much that could have been done with this film that it makes one wonder if this is an edited version that is missing critical information that might show Skarbek in a better light. After all, we don’t even see a lot of Malcolm McDowell.

Everything else in this film, the performances, the settings, the music, the photography, the material, all signal that this is a film to look forward to. But the presentation of events in Skarbek’s missions are all out of order, and with the lack of chronology, the value of her contributions to the war effort are not given proper value. It’s a disservice to her memory.

What’s really sad is that Skarbek’s life ended ignominiously. She was given a 100 pounds severance and a letter of personal thanks from Winston Churchill when she was demobilized at the end of the war. Just to provide a sense of that worth, the average yearly salary was about 3000 pounds. She settled in London, flitting from one low-paying job to the next and was murdered in the 1950s by a disgruntled angry suitor. She deserved better.

Sadly, this film just doesn’t do this legend justice and it begs the question what would Ian Fleming have thought of that?

At least we still have Vesper Lynd.

The Partisan. Directed by James Marquand. Stars Morgane Polanski, Malcom McDowell, Piotr Adamczyk, Ingvar Sigurdsson, Agata Kulesza. The Partisan is available on VOD Friday, October 3.