Mrs. Miniver

1942 propaganda film

Rating: 16/20 (Dylan: 9/20)

Plot: It's the late 1930's in England, and apparently there's some kind of war going on. I don't know much about history. The Minivers are an upper-middle-class loving family. Phin/Sven/Fin/Vin, the oldest son, joins the air force and falls in love and marries his sweetheart. The rest of the family--the title character, her husband, and two funny-looking young children--sit around doing nothing at all most of the time, but the war, as all wars do, reaches them in ways they could never have imagined.

I teared up a little but made up for it by laughing inappropriately during a scene at the end that was supposed to be heartbreaking. My only complaint about this movie is terrible child acting unless I'm missing that Mrs. Miniver's children were supposed to be mentally challenged (it was never addressed). There's some historical accuracies, touches (see: upside-down pipe) probably not difficult to achieve since this was made in the middle of things. Director Wyler reportedly made this to tweak the average Americans' ideas about the war in Europe. Surprisingly, it's not all that dated and isn't nearly as sentimentally drippy as I expected.

My father not only recommended this movie, he bought it for me last Christmas. It's his favorite movie, one of about two dozen movies he's told me is his favorite including, most bizarrely, Somewhere in Time.

Still vacationing. I don't even have enough time to show up on film!