Review of Meet Me in St. Louis (1944) by Forrest P — 09 Oct 2010

I found myself thinking the same though during Meet Me In St. Louis as I did when I saw The Sound Of Music: "Conflict! Please have conflict! This is just sappy!".

Now, Meet Me In St. Louis is not a bad film at all. It's just that the audience has no idea what they're waiting to happen for over half the picture. If a film doesn't have some kind of conflict introduced during the first act, then a lot of time, it feels a little plotless.

I enjoyed Judy Garland's performance, of course. Even though her makeup did look a little sloppy during a lot of the movie. But that's a minor complaint. I did like all of the performances. I will even say the characters were okay, except many of them were rather forgettable. Again, I think some of this has to do with lack of conflict.

I did really, really like most of the songs. I say "most" because a few of them seemed to be thrown into the movie simply for the sake of having another song thrown in. But, in general, a lot of the songs were very, very good, the most memorable for me being Judy Garland singing "Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas.".

Now, once the audience is introduced with the dilemma of Esther (Garland) needing to leave her new-found love because her father wants to move the family to New York City, it was a lot easier for me to become more involved with this picture. After that, the movie became ten times more enjoyable, and, occasionally, quite emotional. The only real problem is that the director had greater ambitions for this being a music than he did for telling a story. So, we do get boggled down with a lot of syrupy plot.

But, besides that, this is a perfectly fine film full of great songs and good emotional responses that make it well worth the watch.

6/10.