Casablanca character descriptions
Rick
Rick owns 'Rick's Café Americain' and is essentially the film's protagonist. When we first meet Rick, he is a dour bar owner in Casablanca who drinks and plays chess alone. After Ilsa enters the picture, he undergoes a considerable change. In a flashback, we see Rick in Paris, in love with Ilsa and visibly happy, and he is devastated when she doesn't show up at the train station. Rick never turns back into the lighthearted lover he was in Paris, but he does overcome his cynicism to become a self-sacrificing idealist, committed to helping the Allied cause in World War II.'Ilsa
Ilsa is Victor Laszlo's wife and Rick's former lover. A devoted wife, Ilsa refuses an exit visa when Laszlo is unable to obtain one while she shows she prefers to wait with him and leave Casablanca together. In Paris, Ilsa previously fell in love with Rick, because at the time she was under the impression that Laszlo was dead. When she learned her husband was still alive, she sent a note to Rick at the train station, saying she could never see him again and never went back to him as she returned to her husband. Despite her obvious commitment to her husband and her confessions of love to Rick both in Paris and later in Casablanca, she rarely displays much passion.Captain Renault
Captain Renault is France's prefect of police in Casablanca. Louis, like the French government he serves and represents, has given up caring about right and wrong, and his only loyalty is to the winning side. Renault is a hypocrite, castigating Rick for allowing gambling in his bar just as he pockets his earnings for the evening.cThis is one of the ways in which Captain Renault brings humour to Casablanca. In one of the scenes, he shuts down the bar because of the gambling that's going on just before he receives the money he won from gambling. Despite his self-serving behavior and seeming amorality, Renault is always a good friend to Rick and shows signs of being a decent person at heart. At the end of the movie, this seed of decency blooms into genuine political action, as he refuses to arrest Rick and decides to join his friend in exile from Casablanca. Louis approaches everything with wit, and many of the film's best lines are his.Victor Laszlo
Victor Laszlo is a Czech nationalist writer and anti-Nazi partisan. Laszlo is a committed political leader. He endured time in a concentration camp, but he remains enthusiastic, courageous, and outspoken. Victor is a devoted husband to Ilsa and is willing to sacrifice himself to ensure her safety.
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