‘Come What May’
Civilians must flee invading troops during World War II
In “Come What May,” director Christian Carion dramatizes the other side of the World War II front line — the civilians fleeing invading troops. The images of uprooted, desperate travelers can’t help but remind one of contemporary refugee crises. Yet with its old-fashioned gloss, the incidentpacked story proves only mildly engaging and finally has little to say.
Carion’s latest historical drama is closer in tone to the feel-good reassurance of his Oscar-nominated “Joyeux Noel” than his tense and fascinating Cold War thriller “Farewell.” Even with its (not entirely convincing) scenes of dive-bombing Stukas, the movie is designed primarily to comfort.
Experiences that should pack an emotional punch instead feel like stagecrafted moments. An exception among the thinly conceived characters is the turn by Matthew Rhys, star of the FX series “The Americans,” as a Scottish soldier. A dash of swashbuckling complexity, it’s the best thing about the film.
The lack of depth charges beneath the polished surface is a shame when Carion is shining a light on a littleexplored aspect of the war. Drawing on the memories of his mother and others who were part of the 1940 exodus, he focuses on one village among the 8 million French residents who packed up their horse-drawn carts as the Nazis advanced through northern France.
Despite some confusing, choppy scene-setting jumps between Germany and France, the film opens with a strong sequence that succinctly explains the exile of a widowed German and his young son. Anti-Nazi activist Hans (August Diehl) and 8-year-old Max (Joshio Marlon) wind up in the rural village of Lebucquière, posing as Belgians. But when his true nationality is discovered, Hans is arrested on suspicion of being a spy. From there, Carion and his co-screenwriters, Andrew Bampfield and Laure Irrmann, weave a twostranded narrative, moving between father and son as they try to find each other while fleeing the Nazis.
Relying on dramatic coincidences and overusing Ennio Morricone’s romantic score, Carion isn’t able to build momentum or resonance from the episodic action. He bookends the film with archival footage and still photographs of the actual exodus, and the haunting images of the people in those caravans are more stirring than anything in the movie itself.
Some individual scenes prove involving, though, and there are harrowing details — Max’s encounter with a dying soldier; the nefarious machinations of a director (Thomas Schmauser) of Nazi propaganda films — but the overall effect is distant and blandly gentle. When, in an unexpected and thought-provoking shift in perspective, Carion focuses on a German infantryman’s trembling terror, you can sense the director reaching for something and wish he’d pushed against the grain elsewhere.