A Call to Spy

Early in the Second World War, the Special Operations Executive set up by Britain is looking for women to send into occupied France, because men now attract attention and are certain to be caught. Vera Atkins runs the programme. Among those sent are Virginia Hall, who has a prosthetic leg, and Noor Inayat Khan, a Muslim wireless operator of Indian descent. Lydia Dean Pilcher directs. Sarah Megan Thomas, who wrote the screenplay, also plays Virginia Hall. Radhika Apte plays Noor and Stana Katic plays Vera. All three women were real. Virginia Hall became one of the agents the Gestapo most wanted in France and crossed the Pyrenees on foot with her prosthetic leg. Noor Inayat Khan worked as a wireless operator in Paris, was captured, and was killed at Dachau. After the war Vera Atkins spent years establishing what had happened to the agents who disappeared. The film's interest is not espionage action but selection and training: why women were chosen, what they were taught, and how high the probability of capture was. It is small and independent, produced with a woman directing, writing and producing. Who it is for: viewers curious about the history of the Resistance and of espionage. Who it is not for: the budget limits are visible, the action is weak, and moving between three stories keeps breaking the film.