Plot Intro
Kay Miniver (Greer Garson) lives her idyllic lifestyle with her husband, Clem (Walter Pidgeon), her grown-up son Vin (Richard Ney) and her two smaller children. She spends her time bantering with the servants and supporting train station conductors in flower shows- she’s awfully nice. Then, war hits! Vin goes off to serve, leaving his fiance (Teresa Wright), Clem gets involved in Dunkirk and Kay ends up performing acts of heroism that she never knew she could achieve.
We come to our fourth of eleven instances in which the Best Actress also starred in the Best Picture, so we’re already familiar with Mrs Miniver. I recalled its impossibly well-constructed speeches from its characters, its total preoccupation with inspiring audiences rather than exploring why we are fighting a war, and Garson’s stoic and sincere stares into the middle-distance.
A second viewing found me enjoying this awfully British and awfully 1940s Oscar winner a whole lot more than previously. Perhaps I’ve grown more appreciative of pastoral life after 8 years living in a bustling city (and 5 months in Corona-lockdown).
Or perhaps I was just in the mood for a film that does all the work for you, because Mrs Miniver is very easy viewing and great fun if you don’t think too much about it. Some scenes are very moving, especially the scene during an air raid in the bomb shelter in which every explosion and every jolt of the Minivers is felt intensely. It’s a very immersive scene which reminds even today’s audience that life in the countryside during this time was far more frightening and precarious than even under today’s pandemic. Similar tones are struck when Mr Miniver heads off in his boat to assist in the famous Dunkirk evacuation, although the tone is lost when Kay finds herself held hostage in her own home by a German parachutist. This latter scene feels immensely farfetched and more in line with society’s contemporary fears rather than real-life experiences.
The central romance between the Minivers’ self-righteous champagne-socialist son and the gutsy local gal is sweet without being cloying, and in fact explores the changing class system very well. Teresa Wright’s snobbish, aristocratic grandmother (played with wonderful Maggie Smith-ness by Dame May Whitty) disapproves but Kay reminds her in a very amusing and didactic scene that historically aristocratic families are not perfect or morally superior, and that in times of war everyone regardless of wealth and status is co-dependent in order to survive. This is further exemplified by the flower competition subplot in which snobby old Lady Beldon must allow a mere train conductor to win, and afterwards allows anyone who requires it to take shelter in her mansion’s cellar.
It’s all quite didactic but the film tackles these ridiculous class divisions at a time when society was soon to reset and bring up a new generation of baby boomers who would move even further away from arbitrary (and destructive) social hierarchies.
Plus if you’re looking for some earnest acting then look no further than Garson. The woman is a statuesque, stone-faced juggernaut in the face of bombs, Nazis and the death of loved ones. Thankfully, it’s not tiresome at all and Garson is symbolic of the image of womanhood so prevalent in the age of war and Eleanor Roosevelt - stoic, resourceful, and dedicated entirely to the survival of her family.
There isn’t a massive amount to say about Garson, unfortunately. Her career was pretty much the early '40s, during which she received 5 consecutive nominations for Best Actress (a record only tied by Bette Davis at about the same time). She was a hugely popular box office draw but after the '40s her career became more understated on television.
Interestingly, her second of three marriages was to Richard Ney, who plays her son in Mrs Miniver and was 12 years younger than her. Apparently it was fraught with difficulty (probably a lot of unwanted publicity) and they divorced after 4 years. Her third marriage was to a Texas oilman and horse breeder with the very VERY Texas name of E.E. “Buddy” Fogelson so I imagine her retirement was very comfortable. She died in 1996 at 91.
Whilst not one of the most noteworthy of Best Actress winners, Garson was huge in her time and Mrs Miniver is definitely her most quintessential work. It’s quaint and delicate even when a major character is killed off, but it’s a low-weight Sunday-afternoon treat.
Highlight
As before, the air raid scene is a work of art in itself. If you want to know what it might have been like hiding in those tiny Anderson shelters in the garden, then give it a watch.
Lowlight
The film is meant to be about an average family trying to “make ends meet” in times of war. But the big problem is that the Minivers are not a family you imagine struggling. They’re well-educated and wealthy. They have a son at Oxford and the opening scenes show Kay buying an expensive new hat and Clem buying an expensive new car, while both jokingly struggling to break the news of their frivolousness to the other. If the story was set in East London at the same time, we’d have something far grittier and more insightful.
Mark
7/10
Doug says...
So here we are again. Mrs Miniver last time round stuck in the memory as a Very Silly Film, filled with absurdist tales of German parachutists, oddly jostling against fascinating portrayals of Dunkirk and wartime flower festivals. It also ends - I remembered - with a Trying To Be Churchill speech that would have been good had the actor delivering it had any gravitas. Alas, he did not.
But just as Paul found, I ended up enjoying this a lot more this time around. Perhaps it was the fact that we’d just come back from a very busy few days in Bristol and were worn out, or perhaps it was the glass of wine I quaffed, but I actually found myself really enjoying it this time around. Much of this is due to a very good and convincing cast hurling themselves into the fray, but I also enjoyed the gentle examination of class barriers breaking down and the climax of the film being a flower show with a storyline that Downton Abbey wouldn’t so much draw from as outright plagiarise.
It’s fascinating too for simply being a living record. The film portrays Dunkirk but was made less than one year after the real Dunkirk. I constantly reminded myself that the audience watching this in the cinema were in the very war being depicted, and still had another two or three years to go. So while obviously it will be tinted a certain way (hello German parachutist saying overly threatening things about bombing everyone until they relent), the small details that usually are gotten wrong will be right - simply for it being that they still were the details at the time of filming.
Greer Garson too acquits herself better than I thought the first time round. Perhaps it’s the blandness of Joan Fontaine last week, but here we have an actress in a similarly wishy-washy role, but Garson finds moments to show quiet amusement when her son is being outwitted by his future wife, or real cleverness when persuading her future mother in law to be alright with the marriage. These moments aren’t in the script, Garson manages to slip them in, moving Mrs Miniver away from being simply saintly, and more human and therefore interesting.
The film for me belongs though to Dame May Whitty who manages to blunt the saccharine elements of her role and heighten the sharpness in a way that makes her much more amusing and scene stealing. She reminds me of Sara Allgood from How Green Was My Valley in the adeptness with which she blends the comic and tragic elements of her personal story arc.
So while there are faults and cracks and moments of obvious patriotism that do jar a little, Mrs Miniver stands up a bit taller on a second viewing. Garson does a fine job and seeing her in the context of the other heroines from the past films, I actually applaud her for the subtle work she does in making Mrs Miniver less saintly and more real.
Highlight
I really enjoy the whole flower show scene, as it builds comedically before leading into the tragic climax of the film.
Lowlight
On rewatching, the German parachutist scene sticks out like a sore thumb. It’s not very well written and doesn’t match the realism of the rest of it.
Marks
7/10
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