THE PARTISAN - Mark Reviews Movies

The Partisan, Brainstorm Media

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Review by Mark Dujsik | October 2, 2025

There's the concept of "the fog of war," in which people's understanding of assorted things is blinded by the chaos of armed conflict. In what seems a completely unintentional move, writer/director James Marquand's The Partisan gives one a tactile sense of that idea. The story feels haphazardly assembled, and the characters remain ciphers throughout. The whole movie ultimately feels like a missed opportunity to present a historical thriller or the study of an audacious, mostly forgotten—or never really known—figure from World War II.

She's Krystyna Skarbek (Morgane Polanski), a spy for the British government who was born in Poland and operated within various parts of the Nazi-occupied world during the war. Marquand's screenplay opens by saying this account covers her first and last mission as a spy, and it's telling that, initially, we can't even determine which mission fits those basic descriptions.

Eventually, it becomes clear that Krystyna's assignment in Warsaw, her hometown, is meant to be her first mission, where she mostly seems to wander the city (needing to be stopped by a vagrant child before she walks directly into path of marching German soldiers) and search for her mother. One could argue that plot of this movie isn't important, since it's mostly about Krystyna's dedication to stop the Nazis and save as many people as possible. That would make for a compelling point, perhaps, if the movie kept the plotting in the backdrop and illuminated anything else about its protagonist beyond that simple characterization. It's nothing more than a job description, really.

To attempt to describe the plot is a fool's errand, because the background and stakes of what happens in each mission seems to change with each new step. In theory, that's the way of this sort of work, as Krystyna discovers that different people and parties have conflicting goals, possess contradictory means of achieving them, and keep certain details and pieces of information secret as a way to distract or deflect attention.

Somehow, this comes as much of a shock to the spy during her final mission as it does during her first one. It's very odd, indeed, to see a character be primarily established as a cynical, hard-nosed sort, while every other character—including her—describes her as such repeatedly, and watch as she's befuddled by the basic hard truths of war.

Polanski's performance, which just rides the fine line—and sometimes stumbles the wrong way—between coming across as cold and just looking bored, surely doesn't help. To be fair, Marquand's screenplay doesn't give the actress much which with work, since Krystyna can seem incompetent or naïve when the script needs her to face some obstacle or momentary internal conflict, while it otherwise only puts forth that the spy also has a very active sex life while on assignment.

Roger (Frederick Schmidt), her British contact in a small and picturesque French village under the control of Vichy government's police, is one of her escapades, prompted by the man standing stark naked in front of the bathroom sink with the door wide open. Like several moments here, the staging of that moment is so awkward and contrived that it's tough to buy on any level other than comedy.

The whole screenplay revolves around such a thinly explained bit of spycraft that another one of those moments includes Krystyna stabbing a former ally for reasons that still don't make much sense after the dying man, apparently aided by some dialogue added in post-production, explains what's happening. It's best not to think too deeply about why, during that first mission, Krystyna kills a Nazi officer while in a building filled with and surrounded by German soldiers, only to allow Capt. Hamann (Piotr Adamczyk) to execute her mother right in front of her with no one else around. Without that moment, there wouldn't be a last-minute revenge tale to tell, obviously.

The movie's a mess, in other words, but at least, it is a good-looking one. The design team offers a convincing re-creation of both Warsaw in ruins and this village, as well as its outskirts, on the verge of becoming the same. Marquand and cinematographer Karol Lakomiec provide a shadowy atmosphere of disorder during one intentionally muddled shootout and of hellish, bloody desolation when Krystyna arrives at a German garrison. With even a basically coherent screenplay, The Partisan might have made for a legitimate, thoughtful study of the fog of war and/or the mind of its main character. Without that, the movie is just hollow, careless spectacle.

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