THE STORY – June, 1940. France collapses and signs the armistice. In the midst of the chaos, one man refuses to give up. Alone against the odds, this unknown general flees to London to save what remains of freedom. Without an army, without backing, without hope. But with one irrational conviction – France, his France, has not laid down arms. Taking the ultimate gamble, he seeks to convince the world that the battle for France is neither over nor lost. Reality, however, is unyielding and seems determined to prove him wrong. Yet, little by little, resistance fighters, rebellious students, and determined soldiers rise up in England, France, and Africa to join the cause. Their faith, audacity, and thirst for freedom defy what history seemed to have written in advance.
THE CAST – Simon Abkarian, Niels Schneider, Janis Ahern, Pierre Aussedat, Thierry Lhermitte, Karim Leklou, Simon Russell Beale, Campbell Scott, Benoît Magimel, Anamaria Vartolomei, Félix Kysyl, François Goeske & Kacey Mottet Klein
THE TEAM – Antonin Baudry (Director/Writer) & Bérénice Vila (Writer)
THE RUNNING TIME – 160 minutes
Perhaps coincidentally, perhaps not (due to real-world political unrest), the French film industry has been increasingly looking back on the country’s history, with at least three 2026 releases dealing with World War II: László Nemes’ “Moulin” is about the man of the same name, the leader of the French Resistance, and his fateful run-in with Gestapo officer Klaus Barbie; Emmanuel Marre’s “A Man of His Time” looks at the flipside, with the bureaucratic machine behind the Nazi-allied Vichy regime, through the point of view of a character loosely based on the director’s own great-grandfather; and then there’s Antonin Baudry’s “De Gaulle,” an ambitious two-part epic, set to release theatrically in France shortly before Bastille Day (the national holiday) that is also Pathé’s biggest release in the year that marks the studio’s 130th anniversary (making it the second oldest still operational film studio in the world after another French company, Gaumont).
The first half of the story begins in the immediate aftermath of France’s capitulation in 1940. Having signed an armistice with Germany, the country is now officially under Nazi control. De Gaulle (Simon Abkarian), however, is having none of it, becoming an early voice of the Resistance from his exile in London, a strategic headquarters for him as he engages in multiple meetings with Winston Churchill to plan battles that will save his homeland, and the rest of the world (but mainly France, as far as the General is concerned). While Churchill struggles sometimes to act as an intermediary between the Frenchman’s ardent passions and the more rational thinking of Allies such as the Americans (represented by President Roosevelt, as played by Campbell Scott), De Gaulle’s fervor begins to inspire like-minded individuals in France, with protests soon erupting on the streets in defiance of the established “order” embodied by Vichy.
Unlike other Pathé-produced event films (think 2023’s “Three Musketeers” or 2024’s “The Count of Monte Cristo”), “De Gaulle” is relying more on the historical event itself, and the man at the center of it, than on a star-studded cast. The most recognizable name is arguably Mathieu Kassovitz, who receives the “and” credit for his brief but pivotal role as Admiral François Darlan, the Commander in Chief of the French Armed Forces under Marshal Pétain and, for a time, the de facto leader of the Vichy government. He’s the closest thing this film has to a traditional villain, given that the main opposing force standing in De Gaulle’s way is international negotiations between multiple interested parties. It is, at times, a very talky movie, efficiently capturing just how drab and frustrating the conflict must have been for the people who sat behind desks arguing the same points over and over in hopes of altering the war’s outcome in their favor.
Of course, battle scenes are still a key component of the film (with more to come in the second part), as one could expect from a project whose French title (“La Bataille De Gaulle”) is a pun referring to both the man and the ancient name for the country he has subsequently come to symbolize. But the dialogue scenes are just as tense and, on occasion, quite epic, particularly when Simon Russell Beale – one of the UK’s finest actors, here channeling a more positive version of the politically charged energy he brought to “The Death of Stalin” as the villainous Beria – gets to really dig into the personality of Churchill, largely avoiding impersonation and making the famed statesman his own. Similarly, Simon Abkarian, a well-liked character actor in France but hardly a known entity internationally, captivatingly disappears into the role of De Gaulle, with equal parts stoicism and passion.
Having previously directed the 2019 submarine thriller “The Wolf’s Call,” Antonin Baudry gets to flex his filmmaking muscles on a much bigger canvas, with sweeping vistas of war-torn lands and opulent buildings where the future of the world is debated with unrestrained fervor. There’s the occasional risk of going too big, specifically when actor Karim Leklou briefly pops up to ostensibly serve as the comic relief, a function that falls flat and is frankly unnecessary in a film that already has Churchill – a character prone to chuckle-inducing histrionics no matter the project – as one of its main attractions. But aside from that tonal faux pas, Baudry knows how to handle the tools at his disposal to craft something massive that still finds time to let its scenes and characters breathe properly, all the way to a climax, both narrative and emotional, that finds the right note on which to close this first episode in a satisfying manner, while still leaving plenty of room and appetite for what will transpire in the concluding chapter.
