mrs. miniver (1942, MGM)
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film notes
William Wyler’s Mrs. Miniver was the first Best Picture winner to be made after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, and it shows. This is a film all about the sad destruction of war and the (very British) notion of staying upright during times of crisis. It doesn’t seek to tell the entire story of conflict, or record the accurate biography of the people who changed the course of history. This is a slice-of-life portrait of a seemingly average, upper-middle-class British family enduring what most all of England was enduring at the time. More so than Cavalcade, this is a powerful drama about watching your loved ones perish in a conflict more sizable than any we’ve seen before. But all from the viewpoint of your own home. Which, in England, could actually be bombed by the Germans.