Most Helpful Customer Reviews
|
|
54 of 56 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
An English Christmas, 21 April 2004
This quiet, unassuming film features a group of the best British actorsand actresses of the post-Second World War period. Celia Johnson alwaysgives an outstanding performance as Jenny, and her stay-at-home daughterrole with an overbearing minister father (Ralph Richardson) is neat,spare, and as effective as Julianne Moore as Laura Brown in the recent TheHours. Margaret Leighton, a marvellous actress who glows in every role sheplays, is Celia Johnson's sister who has been estranged from the familyfor a few years and reappears at this fraught Christmas, and reveals,after a tense reunion with Jenny the real reason for her absence, whichbrings the sisters together again. Their relationship also symbolises therebuilding of families in the recovery years, after the Second World Warhad changed all their lives and the world was no longer the same. RalphRichardson reflects the pre-war attitudes and the difficulties of comingto terms with the new era, the sisters the tribulations of adapting to newways and coping with the leftovers from the war. The supporting actors,who include British stalwarts such as Denholm Elliott, John Gregson, andRoland Culver, do a great job, but the film belongs to the central 3characters. This film is of the 'woman's film' genre of the 1945-1955period, and Celia Johnson and Margaret Leighton were two of the finestrepresentatives of the British film industry at that time.
The film is sentimental and poignant, and none the worse for that. Theacting prevents the story becoming mawkish, and the country setting, thesimple normality of life when life had been far from normal, is theessence of this film. I would recommend this film to anyone studyingBritish post-war film as this is a quintessential example of its type.
|
|
|
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
What a flavour of Old Christmas and its central meaning, 1 Jan 2009
I first videoed this film when it was on TV in the eighties and absolutely loved it, showing it to all my sisters until the tape wore out! What appealed was the marvellous acting, and the wonderful sense of Christmas-lashings of snow, all the family travelling to a little Norfolk town to stay in a parsonage-you can almost smell the goose! The aunts are marvellous and as the previous reviewer has commented on the changing world at that time-no need for me to do so here.What I loved was, in spite of that and all Margaret's problems, that there was a permanence in the old customs and rituals. and that we have to just keep on struggling against what life hurls at us, yet safe in the arms of Love.
Some of the acting was stage style acting but for a film at Christmas, some scenes are really 'still'almost like being held in snow and seem lost in time. Celia Johnson and Margaret Leighton are outstanding. I wish someone would issue this as a DVD. I have bought this VHS but the VHS player is nearing he end of its days......The music score is great, very Christmassy and I particularly like the train journey through the snow and the little boy singing in the church, ending out of tune, while Jenny dresses the crib....so heartwarming.
|
|
|
|
![The Bishop's Wife [DVD] [1947]](http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51G0XVG1SCL._SL500_SS90_.jpg)
DVD ~ Cary Grant
![The Happiest Days Of Your Life [DVD] [1950]](http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/514dotAI2lL._SL500_SS90_.jpg)
DVD ~ Margaret Rutherford
![Yangtse Incident [DVD] [1957]](http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51Ihlz7iQZL._SL500_SS90_.jpg)
DVD ~ Richard Todd
![Lark Rise to Candleford: Complete BBC Series 1 [2008] [DVD]](http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51srzULz2yL._SL500_SS90_.jpg)
DVD ~ Dawn French
![The Reckless Moment [DVD] [1949]](http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51Wi8HgCL6L._SL500_SS90_.jpg)
DVD ~ James Mason
![The Holly And The Ivy [VHS] [1952]](http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/512RZ8YE6KL._SL75_SS50_.jpg)
![The Bishop's Wife [DVD] [1947]](http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51G0XVG1SCL._SL75_SS50_.jpg)
![It's A Wonderful Life [DVD] [1946]](http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51a%2B%2BkyStLL._SL75_SS50_.jpg)
![Mrs Miniver [1942] [DVD]](http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/417N75134ZL._SL75_SS50_.jpg)
With an Amazon.co.uk Gift Certificate, you can get them what they want (even if you don't know what that is). 
Amazon Home