Fate is the hunter in this romantic drama, covering the tumultuous '30s and early '40s in Europe, which wants to mix character study with historical context but winds up with unconvincing melodrama. Evoking Hemingway's fiction and movies ranging from "Casablanca" to "The English Patient," John Duigan's "Head in the Clouds," for all its attentive period details, glamour and music, is a hollow exercise. The film should appeal to older adults, who fondly recall old Hollywood tales of clandestine activities and affairs set in the crumbling social mores of a world at war.

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