Review of Mrs. Miniver (1942) by Barbara D — 22 Feb 2009

Yes, this is a propaganda film. Don't worry though, it's good! At least they don't try to hide the fact that it's a propaganda film!

Mrs Miniver was made in a very sensitive and troubled time. WWII was still raging on and London was being bombed by the German Nazis almost on a daily basis. Many innocent people died and lost their homes. Because of the troubles in England, this film was made to recruit the Americans to fight in the war.

There are several propaganda tactics in the film which were used in clever ways and Greer Garson's performance was quite convincing too. I felt that many of the characters in the film were likeable and the story in general was interesting. Some scenes in the film were very moving too, particularly the scene when Mrs Miniver and her family are in an underground bomb shelter and the sound of exploding bombs can be heard. The bombs are never seen, only heard. This just proves that a film doesn't need multi-million dollar special effects to convey a message or to move the audience. Another moving scene was the ending one with the priest's speech in the church. That's considered one of the most inspiring moments in film.

Although this film was very moving at times, there were some problems I had with it. Mainly, I had a problem with Mrs Miniver's husband, played by Walter Pidgeon. He was a sexist prick! In one scene, he literally throws his wife on the bed and spanks her on the butt continuously. He doesn't do it in a sexy way (that would've been too raunchy for the time, I know), he does it in an abusive girl-basher way. Her maid even has to rub her butt because she was hit so hard. When she was hit, she didn't even giggle to clarify that the scene was light hearted. She looks like she's about to cry and her husband just laughs. WHAT AN ARSEHOLE! And he did it because his wife wasn't sticking to her place as a stereotypical housewife! Nowadays, we call it sexual harrassment. Another problem I had with her husband was that he did not convince me in one single moment of the film that he was an Englishman. His accent was slipping all the bloody time! I thought he was American, but actually he was Canadian. Either way, he couldn't do a proper English accent.

Another problem I had was with Mrs Miniver's son Toby. The kid. Even my S and E teacher wanted to kill him! Toby had the most annoying voice in the world. It was so annoyingly high pitched and just ... gut-wrenchingly awful. Agh! His voice made me want to kill things!

I thought the acting in this film could've been a bit better ... Maybe they could've gotten an original British cast, but oh well. I also did feel that sometimes in the film, some of the characters were a bit hard to relate to. I did'nt find them quite realistic, but it didn't bother me as much as Toby and Mr. Bastard.

Well, apart from the negatives, Mrs Miniver is a well put together and often moving story of an average British family that is forced to suffer the misfortunes of WWII. It was excellent.