Describing something as a soap is generally meant as an insult but soaps are the most popular form of entertainment and if done well like this they can be quite special. This is an uneventful story of ordinary everyday normal life turned into something spectacular.
What makes this film so special is how unspecial the family's life is. There's no world shattering events, no abject poverty to struggle through, no murders, conspiracies or crimes, just everyday life. Even the Technicolor is cleverly used to reinforce the drabness and ordinariness of life, but nevertheless life to be celebrated. David Lean however turns what could have been a stagey filmed theatre play into a beautiful big screen, big budget cinematic piece of art. It does take a while to get to know the characters. For the first hour you do feel it drags a little but like with any good soap, you'll be so glad you stick with it.
Watched today it's interesting to see how very similar the attitudes of this typical lower middle class family are to ours today. It's interesting to contrast these attitudes to the narrow-minded snobbery of the upper classes often portrayed as cold-hearted villains in American films of the early thirties or more pertinent to this film, BRIEF ENCOUNTER. It seems that us ordinary people haven't changed that much. This makes this old movie very accessible to us now.
And talking of American films of the early thirties, when some of the family go to see THE BROADWAY MELODY it looks absolutely ancient in context of what you yourself are watching now. How quickly film making techniques improved (but I still quite like BROADWAY MELODY). "I coornt understand a wuurd thuy say" says someone commenting on the American accents. Interesting how totally different the cockney accent was back then to now. Celia Johnson, although definitely not a cockney does an authentic pre-war accent which would sound as ridiculous now as would her own 1940s upper-class accent a lá BRIEF ENCOUNTER.
What makes this film so special is how unspecial the family's life is. There's no world shattering events, no abject poverty to struggle through, no murders, conspiracies or crimes, just everyday life. Even the Technicolor is cleverly used to reinforce the drabness and ordinariness of life, but nevertheless life to be celebrated. David Lean however turns what could have been a stagey filmed theatre play into a beautiful big screen, big budget cinematic piece of art. It does take a while to get to know the characters. For the first hour you do feel it drags a little but like with any good soap, you'll be so glad you stick with it.
Watched today it's interesting to see how very similar the attitudes of this typical lower middle class family are to ours today. It's interesting to contrast these attitudes to the narrow-minded snobbery of the upper classes often portrayed as cold-hearted villains in American films of the early thirties or more pertinent to this film, BRIEF ENCOUNTER. It seems that us ordinary people haven't changed that much. This makes this old movie very accessible to us now.
And talking of American films of the early thirties, when some of the family go to see THE BROADWAY MELODY it looks absolutely ancient in context of what you yourself are watching now. How quickly film making techniques improved (but I still quite like BROADWAY MELODY). "I coornt understand a wuurd thuy say" says someone commenting on the American accents. Interesting how totally different the cockney accent was back then to now. Celia Johnson, although definitely not a cockney does an authentic pre-war accent which would sound as ridiculous now as would her own 1940s upper-class accent a lá BRIEF ENCOUNTER.