The Truth About Charlie

The Truth About Charlie is a 2002 mystery film directed, produced, and co-written by Jonathan Demme. A remake of Charade, it stars Mark Wahlberg and Thandiwe Newton in the roles played by Cary Grant and Audrey Hepburn in Charade. The film is also an homage to François Truffaut's Shoot the Piano Player complete with the French singer Charles Aznavour, making two appearances singing his song "Quand tu m'aimes".
The Truth About Charlie closely mirrors the plotline of Charade. The story is once again set in Paris and features several famous French actors. Director Agnès Varda makes a cameo appearance. Actress/chanteuse Anna Karina sings a Serge Gainsbourg song in one scene. Peter Stone, screenwriter of Charade, receives a story credit as Peter Joshua, one of the aliases Grant's character uses in the first film. The name of Wahlberg's character in the remake is Joshua Peters.

Plot

British newlywed Regina Lambert lives in Paris with her husband Charles. She returns home following a short vacation, determined to divorce Charles only to discover their apartment has been stripped bare and that her husband has been murdered. The French police are in her apartment. Charles had liquidated their possessions for $1.8M and the money is missing.
Regina is soon reunited with a mysterious stranger Joshua she met on her holiday. He helps her piece together the truth about the deceased Charlie and deal with three menacing people who are now following her.

Cast

Mark Wahlberg as Lewis Bartholomew
Stephen Dillane as Charlie
Thandie Newton as Regina Lambert
Sakina Jaffrey as Sylvia
Christine Boisson as Commandant Dominique
Simon Abkarian as Lieutenant Dessalines
Park Joong-hoon as Lee Il-sang
Lisa Gay Hamilton as Lola Jansco
Ted Levine as Emil Zadapec
Magali Noël as Mysterious woman in black
Tim Robbins as Carson J. Dyle
Agnès Varda as The widow Hyppolite
Charles Aznavour as Himself
Olivier Broche as Aznavour fan
Manno Charlemagne as 'Chez Josephine' Maitre D'
Anna Karina as Karina
Philippe Katerine as Karina fan
Philippe Duquesne as Café cook
Kenneth Utt as The Late Monsieur Hyppolite
Sotigui Kouyaté as Dealer Prophète
Paula Moore as Ms. Hoskins
Françoise Bertin as Woman on Train
Jason Ainley as Smash Loser
David Barco as Smash Champion
Alban Lenoir as Skinhead

Production

In December 2000, it was announced Jonathan Demme was finalizing plans to direct, write and produce a remake of the 1963 film Charade with Thandiwe Newton and Mark Wahlberg in talks to star. Due to how heavily Demme and his co-writers based the film upon Charade, it was determined that original writer Peter Stone had to be credited, but Stone felt uncomfortable placing his name on the film as he hadn't been involved and opted for the pseudonym Peter Joshua as a reference to an alias used by Cary Grant's character in Charade. Demme's unorthodox approach to the material was inspired by French New Wave and had wanted Universal to include the tagline "When in doubt, laugh" on the film's promotional materials but was rejected.

Reception

The Truth About Charlie has 34% positive reviews on Rotten Tomatoes from 135 reviews. The website's consensus reads, "Newton has star quality, but this exercise in style can't hold a candle to the original." Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the film a score of 55 out of 100, based on 35 critics, indicating "mixed or average" reviews. Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "D" on an A+ to F scale.