Review of The Grapes of Wrath (1940) by Ben L — 04 Jul 2017

The Grapes of Wrath is a tough movie to swallow. It's basically a film about a family desperately trying to survive during the Great Depression. It's not exactly "fun" to watch so many struggles and trials being heaped on this sweet family. Everything seems to go wrong and I empathize with these poor people and hate to see it all happen.

Henry Fonda and Jane Darwell are spectacular in The Grapes of Wrath and they add most of the heart to the film. I am totally rooting for this family because these two make me care about them. They are given the unforgiving task of delivering some heavy-handed monologues at the end, but it never came across as insincere, which had to be tough.

While I realize this movie isn't based on a history book, I appreciated the strong historical feel of the story. These specific things probably didn't happen exactly as shown, but I thought the feel of that time was captured perfectly. There were things that they experienced that did happen back in those days, and trials that wrecked thousands of lives back then.

Rating and ranking films like The Grapes of Wrath is a challenge for me. On the one hand I see some real quality and care that went into the film. I see good acting and a well-crafted story. But on the other hand, it's just not enjoyable. I feel the struggle with the characters and I don't like it. So take my rating and ranking with a big grain of salt...