This movie is based on the war experiences of 3 actual women and is a heroic story. Unfortunately, the way it is told didn't impress me. Perhaps that is because I already knew Virginia Hall's story in some detail thanks to a book "A Woman of No Importance". According to that book, Hall was an agent of great importance with many significant contributions to the war effort. In fact, reading that book, one might think that Hall was more important than anyone other than Eisenhower. Despite what must be some bias on the part of the author, I still believe that book to be mostly accurate.
The circumstances behind the entire story are complex. The movie had to choose how much of that to tell and left out a lot of nuance. It touched on many aspects but didn't dwell on them. Some of these are: 1) For the Allies, women as spies in the field was unheard of. It was considered unsporting, ungentlemanly and too dangerous.
2) Women were generally not respected for any abilities beyond secretarial. This prejudice is almost impossible for the 21st century viewer to completely comprehend. Vera Atkins was almost an exception to this. She was respected by her boss, but many of her accomplishments were only possible as his representative. Hall suffered for this even more so in France. She was often overruled in the field by less senior male agents despite being right most of the time. Yet she still accomplished a great deal.
3) Many of the details of events are not known with certainty. Atkins was suspected by some of being incompetent (see #4) or even a double agent. Even history has not resolved this with certainty. Also historical records don't always show with certainty exactly who betrayed whom. At least one other fictional work proposes that the British deliberately allowed some of their agents to be killed so as to protect the secret of just how effective the network was. (This same thinking was actually used regarding the German's Enigma code where some information gathered was not used lest it give away that the Allies had broken that code.)
4) About a third of F section's agents were captured and/or killed. The SOE made a huge mistake in not taking seriously signs that some of their agents had been captured, especially Noor. There were protocols for this which were ignored because of uncertainties resulting from the "fog of war".
5) Because this kind of spy craft was new, at least for the SOE, agents were not completely trained and sometimes their training was cut short by need.
This movie is well worth watching to remind oneself of the bravery and sacrifice of so many during WW2. One can't help but think of the adage that War is Hell.
The circumstances behind the entire story are complex. The movie had to choose how much of that to tell and left out a lot of nuance. It touched on many aspects but didn't dwell on them. Some of these are: 1) For the Allies, women as spies in the field was unheard of. It was considered unsporting, ungentlemanly and too dangerous.
2) Women were generally not respected for any abilities beyond secretarial. This prejudice is almost impossible for the 21st century viewer to completely comprehend. Vera Atkins was almost an exception to this. She was respected by her boss, but many of her accomplishments were only possible as his representative. Hall suffered for this even more so in France. She was often overruled in the field by less senior male agents despite being right most of the time. Yet she still accomplished a great deal.
3) Many of the details of events are not known with certainty. Atkins was suspected by some of being incompetent (see #4) or even a double agent. Even history has not resolved this with certainty. Also historical records don't always show with certainty exactly who betrayed whom. At least one other fictional work proposes that the British deliberately allowed some of their agents to be killed so as to protect the secret of just how effective the network was. (This same thinking was actually used regarding the German's Enigma code where some information gathered was not used lest it give away that the Allies had broken that code.)
4) About a third of F section's agents were captured and/or killed. The SOE made a huge mistake in not taking seriously signs that some of their agents had been captured, especially Noor. There were protocols for this which were ignored because of uncertainties resulting from the "fog of war".
5) Because this kind of spy craft was new, at least for the SOE, agents were not completely trained and sometimes their training was cut short by need.
This movie is well worth watching to remind oneself of the bravery and sacrifice of so many during WW2. One can't help but think of the adage that War is Hell.