Head in the Clouds

Head in the Clouds (2004) is a war-era romantic drama directed by John Duigan — watch it online on iFILM. Paris, the 1930s. Irish student Guy Malyon crosses paths with Gilda Bessé, who is rich, reckless, and entirely uninterested in the direction the world is heading. Their connection spans years and continents as Europe tips toward catastrophe.

Charlize Theron plays Gilda as a woman who has decided that beauty and freedom are the only answers to a century that keeps asking terrible questions. Stuart Townsend's Guy loves her too seriously to play by her rules and too honestly to stop trying. Penélope Cruz rounds out the trio as Mia, a Spanish refugee who arrives in Gilda's Paris apartment and shifts the balance between all three. When Spain burns and the Wehrmacht rolls into France, the comfortable arrangement the three have built stops being possible.

Written and directed by Duigan, the film is less interested in wartime heroics than in how people justify staying outside history — and what it costs when history arrives anyway. Stream Head in the Clouds (2004) online on iFILM.