Brad Pitt and Marion Cotillard step out in London for Allied premiere

Angelina Jolie’s ex-husband Brad Pitt appeared to be happy and healthy as he attended a photocall in Paris, France, along with “Allied” co-star Marion Cotillard. Pitt and Cotillard connect, because there’s a matching toughness to their sensuality. Movies set in the 1940s still reflect the best period in history for clothes and grooming, when people looked smart and glamorous, and it’s a great makeover for the two stars here.

Michael Ordoña of the San Francisco Chronicle goes into further detail regarding the story told to Knight, and says the writer described the tale as being about a Canadian spy and a French schoolteacher who joined the Resistance and fell in love. Furthermore, the movie is only loosely based on the supposedly true tale. With a quick shave and a change of clothes, he looks as impeccable as Cary Grant.

However, the lovely and moody aesthetics of this tale of spies in love, the wonderful performance by Marion Cotillard and the fine direction from Robert Zemeckis combine to make it engrossing and compelling, if not quite wholly special.

During the war, men and women operatives often posed undercover as couples. And then, when things get too intimate between them, he resists, saying that sex between operatives is a mistake. She looks fabulous doing so, though, so I forgive.

Joining her on the red carpet was Brad, who lived up to his title of one of Hollywood’s hottest hunks as he wore a slick black suit and pea coat.

So “Allied”, which was mostly shot on soundstages, is filled with some eye-catching effects, including a brutal bombing of London. Max and Marianne, after their Casablanca adventure, relocate to London and assume the life of a normal couple. That is until Vatan’s superior (a no-nonsense but empathetic Jared Harris) and an unnamed yet truly icy intelligence officer (Simon McBurney) haul Vatan into a bunker to inform him that Marianne may in fact be a spy for the Nazis, and that it will be up to Vatan to kill her if her loyalty to the Allies can not be confirmed.

She was then pressed by interviewer Matt Lauer who asked if she had let any of the whispers affect the making of the movie.

Jolie, has also made her return to the spotlight following the breakup. (It also recalls, at certain points, Zemeckis’s own domestic thriller What Lies Beneath.) Allied is not as good as the classics, to be sure, but like its heroes it’s pretty close to what it’s pretending to be. To describe Cotillard’s performance would nearly necessitate revealing the ultimate turn of Marianne’s character.

Pitt and Cotillard have been promoting the film all over the world in the last few weeks, jetting from the USA to Europe for the Paris premiere on Sunday.

Here, director Robert Zemeckis shines – with painfully slow moments of silence, Max’s tilting of the bathroom mirror to watch Marianne’s movements, her hands creeping eerily into the frame, the clock ticking in his ears, his palpable terror poorly masked from his seemingly unsuspecting wife. He’s the audience’s stand-in, the person viewers are content to be for two hours.

The secondary question is whether we care. But Zemeckis knows how to use him in quiet mode, forcing us into the same frenzied state of mind. Directed by Robert Zemeckis.