Review of Yanks (1979) by Alan S — 19 Jul 2013

The movie is very atmospheric; its makers put much effort into creating an authentic setting and realistic scenarios and characters. One really feels transported into the historical situation, without any nostalgic cheesiness.

I also appreciate that the movie is leisurely in its pace; it's definitely all about getting to know the characters and seeing them evolving. Very refreshing in this age of fast-paced punchlines. Lisa Eichhorn delivers by far the best performance in the film as she portrays conflicted emotions, torn between her loyalty to her fiancé at the front and her attraction to the brash and charming American sergeant pursuing her.

Amazingly, Eichhorn is American--I have never seen an American actor/actress portray a British character so genuinely. Her body language, facial expressions, and accent seem British through and through--not a trace of Americanness.

... Gere is charismatic and delivers a good performance as well. What bothered me most about the movie was the uncritical way it portrays the sleazy adulterous affair between the Vanessa Redgrave and Walter Devaine characters.

Those two characters are supposed to be very sensitive people with real emotional depth, yet they seem far too untroubled about the spouses they are cheating, even though, at a certain point, the Redgrave character does encounter compunction.

Devaine just seems smarmy and ingratiating--it's unconvincing to me that the finely sensitive Redgrave character would take him seriously. She acts as if he's somehow this sensitive kindred soul, but as a viewer, it's hard to share her viewpoint.

And yet the movie seems to insist that one ought to see him that way. The movie's ending is painfully inconclusive--one is left wondering with painful uncertainty about the ultimate future of the Gere and Eichhorn characters.

Of course, one is supposed to feel what the characters are feeling--the painful uncertainty of wartime...