Mrs. Miniver
Mrs. Miniver
NR | 03 July 1942 (USA)
Mrs. Miniver Trailers

Middle-class housewife Kay Miniver deals with petty problems. She and her husband Clem watch her Oxford-educated son Vin court Carol Beldon, the charming granddaughter of the local nobility as represented by Lady Beldon. Then the war comes and Vin joins the RAF.

Reviews
Kattiera Nana I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.
UnowPriceless hyped garbage
Aneesa Wardle The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.
Zlatica One of the worst ways to make a cult movie is to set out to make a cult movie.
grantss Superb World War 2 drama, and the 1943 Best Picture Oscar winner.Great depiction of the effects of WW2 on a family and community, what they have to go through and how they survive. Not at all sugar- coated: quite gritty and realistic. Conclusion is very stirring. Also covers social issues, especially the English class system, though this is not tackled in a very in-depth or very confrontational manner. Considering that this was made in 1942, it would have have been intended as a propaganda movie, but it doesn't come across at all as being jingoistic or overly nationalistic. It is a movie for all time.Greer Garson and Teresa Wright are excellent in the main female roles, and well-deserved their Best Actress and Best Supporting Actress Oscars, respectively. Both are stunningly beautiful too. Henry Travers and May Witty are great as Mr Ballard and Lady Beldon, respectively, and deserved their supporting actor/actress nominations.However, among these fantastic performances are two weak ones which reduce the quality of the movie somewhat, and make it less than perfect. What possessed the producers to cast two Americans (though Walter Pidgeon might be regarded as a Canadian) in the two main male roles is beyond me. Walter Pidgeon is supposed to be the quintessential English gentleman yet doesn't even try to sound it, sticking with his American accent. This and his wooden acting are quite off-putting. Somehow he then got an Oscar nomination too.Richard Ney, as Vincent Miniver, at least put on an English accent, but it comes across as too posh and snooty. Also off-putting.Couldn't they find two English actors?Overall, however, it is a timeless classic.
popcorninhell It's hard to believe that out of the Academy Award's eighty five year existence, there have only been a handful of Best Picture winners I would consider truly grand and worth anyone's time. True few have been of decidedly crappy quality, but fewer still I would peg as a must see that will change your life for the better. Mrs. Miniver (1942) is decidedly not a movie of exceptional caliber.Mrs. Miniver is an American film about a middle class British family who is faced with the grim realities of WWII. Greer Garson plays the title role with the esteemed Walter Pidgeon fudds-his-duddy as the family patriarch. They are fairly happy in marriage and have managed to crank out three kids, the oldest just returning from Oxford. As the film progresses the family has to face German spying, German bombing and British nobility faking nobility.Released in the midst of WWII, William Wyler's family war drama has the telling sense of weariness of a movie trying to rally people for war. Did I mention there's a war going on? It's a propaganda film through and through, with the family a microcosm of British unity and stiff upper lip attitude. At least Henry V (1944) had the good graces to take place in another war to rally English troops for modern warfare. Similarly Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger's 49th Parallel (1941) largely took the perspective of a squadron of Nazis to insert its Union Jack pride. Now I'm not saying patriotism is a bad thing, especially when it's sorely needed in a time of life-or-death struggle. But despite British actors, the film I feel rings hollow for contemporary audiences.Of course Mrs. Miniver was a Best Picture winner for a reason, and that reason isn't limited to pride. The film is occasionally nice to look at. William Wyler's direction is confident and top-notch as always and being an American production shot in California, the dialogue is earnest and free of an abundance of Britishisms like a romance shrouded in social protocol or villains explaining their plans for the sake of gentlemanly fair play. The scenes taking place among ruined countryside and masonry is arguably some of the best set designs of the period. Furthermore Garson's Miniver is a solid foundation for the other performances to ground themselves.Mrs. Miniver ultimately reminds me of The King's Speech (2010) in its grandeur. The King's Speech is a great movie but did it really deserve to beat out The Social Network (2010) or Toy Story 3 (2010) for the coveted golden statuette? Well there's an argument to be made but Mrs. Miniver went up against 49th Parallel (1942), Pride of the Yankees (1942) and Yankee Doodle Dandy (1942). Watch them all then tell me which you remember more.http://www.theyservepopcorninhell.blogspot.com
jpark4 I'm sorry, but I've always felt that this film is overrated.  The story is good, as a propaganda piece, yet the acting and the production values leave much to be desired.To begin with, this is a very claustrophobic film, and feels very set-bound.  It feels exactly as if it is taking place in a studio in Hollywood, and there is very little that feels English about it.  I always feel very conscious that this is an American film about England  made in America-even the Miniver house is much more American than English.The acting is stiff.  One is very conscious that the two principal American actors, Teresa Wright and Richard Ney, are clearly not English, and even the English actors seem to be trying too hard. Greer Garson gives the best performance in the film, but her acting seems strained throughout.  Walter Pidgeon has a hard time being convincingly English, though as a Canadian, he does a better job than the Americans.  I can see how this would have won Best Picture of 1942; the field was fairly weak that year (although I think that "Talk of the Town" was a better film, or even "King's Row"), and with our recent entry into the war, the propaganda impact was enough to put it over.It's an okay film that loses more impact each passing year.  It certainly is not timeless art, nor is it deserving of the gushing praise that it often gets.
thecole777 Another romantic war movie. There seem to be so many. I didn't find this one much different from the rest. The acting of the main roles was good and the camera-work was all good and stuff but I still didn't appreciate the movie as a whole. The ending was OK too but a little cheesy. The death was sad and showed how bad war is. I don't see why she didn't win the flower competition. I also didn't like how they portrayed war as a whole and I thought they were contradicting themselves in some parts with the symbolism and whatnot. The best parts were in the beginning before all the war stuff happens and ruins everything.