Desperate Journey Review: Parisian Hideaways

Though handsome and not without compelling moments, Annabel Jankel’s Desperate Journey tries to do too much within its modest means.

There’s little to Desperate Journey that’s unexpected, right down to its structure. The film opens on a group of Jewish prisoners caught in a bombing raid in Germany in 1945. We meet Freddie Knoller (Lucas Lynggaard Tønnesen), who goes on to recount his story in flashback. Back in 1938 in his native Vienna, he experienced increasing antisemitic hostility as the Nazis prepared to annex Austria. The period recreations look good, albeit with the style of a high-budget TV drama rather than a gritty feature. The cobblestones and brick buildings look pristine, while Freddie and his family are all afflicted by the plummy English accents that seem to come as standard in these projects

Histories of the Holocaust always deserve to be told, but the problem for Desperate Journey is that it can’t find an interesting hook for Freddie’s story. His escape and subsequent survival is remarkable, and not without pain or loss, but the imagery and plot developments in Michael Radford’s script come from other films that did this before and better. Freddie’s parents (Sienna Guillory and Ed Stoppard) are conflicted over which of their sons gets to flee to America, and which has to go on the run locally. It’s not quite Sophie’s Choice, but a sense of conflict gets squeezed in where it isn’t needed. A midnight raid on Jewish homes by the SS invokes scenes of barbarism straight out of The Pianist and Inglourious Basterds, but Desperate Journey can’t bring itself to dwell on the resulting bloodshed. 

Freddie gets out of Vienna, and makes his way to his dream city of Paris. Of course, he has to cross the Alps first, where rolling hills and kindly locals evoke memories of La Grande Illusion and A Hidden Life. Cinematographer Gergely Pohárnok ensures the locations are never less than handsome, though the lighting schemes can draw attention to themselves. When he arrives in Paris, Freddie gets roped into the stylishly backlit salons of the city’s red light district. A flamboyant Spanish maître d’ (Fernando Guallar) takes the young man under his wing, realizing his language skills come in useful in selling the clubs’ wares to the newly arrived Nazis. There’s more than a hint of Cabaret in the air, though Guallar’s Christos gives the film a touch of much needed levity.

As Freddie continues to hide out in Paris, Desperate Journey goes full Casablanca, with a femme fatale (Clara Rugaard’s Jacqueline), a boo-hiss Nazi officer (Til Schweiger, gnawing at the scenery), and a plot involving secret documents and double-crosses. Director Annabel Jankel keeps the film going at a steady clip, but the material doesn’t offer her the subversiveness of previous works (We’re a long way from the trippiness of 1985’s Max Headroom, which she co-directed). Individual choices in the script forever threaten to derail her efforts. Desperate Journey frequently cuts back to Freddie’s eventual imprisonment, creating jarring tonal shifts and stalling plot momentum. The dialogue is peppered with too many modern utterances (Was ‘dumbass’ a common insult in the 1940s?), while the film’s forebears forever linger in the shadows.

Desperate Journey is certainly ambitious, but what ends up onscreen feels tailored to a broad, risk-averse audience. It’s a thrilling story with the edges sanded off. What’s left still has some thrills, but it should have dug deeper. Desperate Journey covers the whole trip from escape to hiding to capture, but the desperation rarely rings true.

Desperate Journey will be released in UK cinemas on November 28, 2025.