Jesse Eisenberg in Resistance (IFC Films)

There’s definitely a compelling film buried somewhere in Jonathan Jakubowicz’s Resistance, which details the French Resistance heroics of Marcel Marceau (Jesse Eisenberg), long before he would be recognized as the world’s most renowned mime. Unfortunately, the manner in which it tells this good vs. evil narrative feels strangely banal. I’d chalk that up to an overabundance of cinema clichés, which prevent the film’s darker undertones from fully translating into an emotional drama.

As a biopic, Resistance is passable. Marcel Mangel is a Chaplin-inspired Jewish stage actor performing in his hometown of Strasbourg, France, much to the dismay of his father, Charles (Karl Markovics), who runs a kosher butcher shop. Nevertheless, this physical humor proves useful when Marcel is tasked by his cousin Georges (Géza Röhrig) to help care for a number of Jewish orphans whose families were killed by the Nazis. This includes a young girl, Elsbeth (Game of Thrones’ Bella Ramsey), whose parents were murdered the night of Kristallnacht.

Marcel manages to make the kids laugh with an amusing wind-blowing skit and, before long, becomes something of a surrogate brother to them, alongside his younger brother Alain (Félix Moati) and fellow resistance member Emma (Clémence Poésy). Then World War II comes to France, and the stakes are raised immeasurably.

I enjoyed Resistance’s first act the most, mainly for how it forces Marcel and the other Jewish characters to grapple with the seriousness of the Nazis’ horrific ambition. Despite the opening Kristallnacht scene’s cruelty, Hitler’s words are first dismissed as just talk by people, like Marcel’s father, as a way to use Jews as an economic scapegoat and little else. “Populists talk so idiots can rage with euphoria and feel better about their miserable lives,” he muses during a dinner conversation, refusing to believe that Germany’s rhetoric will ever affect his life. Of course, history tells us differently. Six weeks after Marcel and the children are forced to leave Strasbourg in 1940, France and nearly all of Europe falls to Nazi invasion, forcing them to deal with a political force that openly wants them exterminated.

Unfortunately, once the story relocates itself to Vichy France, the biopic loses steam as it becomes less about Marcel (who changes his last name to Marceau) and more about the Jewish Resistance. Despite some solidly choreographed set pieces, the broadening of the narrative’s scope ironically makes this film feel less intimate, especially once Gestapo chief Klaus Barbie (Matthias Schweighöfer) is introduced as an antagonist.

While he regularly displays monstrous actions, like executing resistance members in Lyon’s Hotel Terminus pool, Barbie’s vendetta is not against Marceau specifically. He’s simply a foil for this place and time in history, acting as a physical embodiment of Nazism’s evil. And while there are encounters with Marceau and the supporting cast—specifically one horrifying torture scene—I found Barbie detestable more for being a Nazi rather than as a memorable movie character.

In terms of the performances, Ramsey continues to impress long after she blew everyone’s minds as Lyanna Mormont. Eisenberg, by comparison, is iffier, as his casting feels unintentionally distracting. With the exception of Ed Harris’s General George S. Patton, who narrates the mime’s story at the beginning, Eisenberg is the most obvious Hollywood face among a sea of non-American actors, so when he tries to speak in a French accent, it stands out.

Rather fittingly, Eisenberg shines better in the physicality department, leaning into Marceau’s mastery of silent acrobatics and sleight of hand to evade adversaries and bring comfort to others. Mime is Marceau best gift, but I sadly didn’t know much about the man beyond that skill when the film ended. And I wanted to know more.

The result is a movie at odds with itself, as Resistance wants to be a compelling biopic and harrowing Holocaust story but seems disinterested in going bold with both. The former has potential but is locked down by basic Hollywood storytelling, while the latter overcrowds itself with so many plot threads that it feels like Marceau’s story gets left behind. And that feels like a missed opportunity. You have a mime outsmarting Nazis. Why ruin that with unnecessary talking?

Written and Directed by Jonathan Jakubowicz
Released by IFC Films
UK/France/Germany/USA. 120 min. Rated R
With Jesse Eisenberg, Ed Harris, Edgar Ramírez, Clémence Poésy, Bella Ramsey, and Matthias Schweighöfer