Resistance

The emotional impact of the film, despite the true-life story it is based on, feels strangely slight and though it does pull its punches at times, it still makes for rewarding viewing.

If it’s a little perverse, casting such an intensely verbal actor as maybe the most famous silent performer in showbiz history, maybe that’s in keeping with a biopic that makes the unintuitive choice to focus only on the pre-fame years of the French mime’s life.

“Resistance” can’t stop finding new reasons to ignore its protagonist, or flatten him into anonymity. Standard-issue subplots pile up to the point that a climactic scene feel as if it’s been lifted from a different, better film.

There’s also the fact that Eisenberg, 36, is playing a Marcel who was barely 16 when the events of the film transpired. Still, there’s no doubting the emotional commitment of all involved to a story that honors the communal struggle against deadly forces...

Resistance runs the clear risk of traipsing into Life Is Beautiful territory. But with the exception of one awkward scene... Jakubowicz mostly steers clear of any unctuous sentimentalizing of responses to genocidal evil.

Seemingly uncomfortable in his own body to begin with, Eisenberg bears an uncanny resemblance to the renowned mime, and he has clearly dedicated himself to learning a few basic routines, but they don’t feel organic to the places in which his character uses them in the film.

Resistance happily avoids novelty, making its hero one credible human among many in a wartime tale that, though largely familiar in its feel, dramatizes a question that has become urgent for many in recent years: How does one best resist hatred — by fighting its proponents, or rushing to assist its targets?

I give it a lot of credit for being a movie that doesn’t have its head up its own fundament concerning the question of how Nazis should have, and should be, fought.