It’s surprisingly difficult to review a movie that was supposed to be a game-changer back in the 40’s when my parents weren’t even fetuses yet because after watching a boring movie like Mrs. Miniver which won Best Picture in 1942, I have to somehow acknowledge that all the jokes and powerful moments and strengths of character were iconic for that time period despite the fact that nowadays we would simply shrug them off and scream “quit being such a baby!” I was half hoping that at the end of the film Britney Spears or Justin Beiber would walk onto the screen and say “ok, so you kind of had to be there,” and walk off to go be the icons of today creating music videos and news stories that, if seen in 1942, they would simply shrug them off and scream “quit being such a baby!” Ah, irony, how I love thee.
I’m going to struggle to come up with a plot for Mrs. Miniver because half of the reason I was so bored was because I spent too much time trying to find one; it was like Mission: Impossible without the death and the Tom Cruise or the death of Tom Cruise which would insta-win Best Picture in my book for any year. It simply shows off the Miniver family as Germany started bringing World War II to London and puts them on auto-pilot as they go from living life in their big fuck “we are the 1% house” to their tiny fuck bomb shelter and let them swap back and forth at will with that whole symbolic “yeah, there’s a war going on, but you can still go about your lives” thing.
But there wasn’t really a lot of feeling behind it, the Miniver family only seemed to care about themselves instead of what was really going on with the bombs and explosions and invasion of Nazi Germany and the country as a whole; it was really rather selfish when you get right down to it, like a wealthy businessman in New York in 9/11 getting mad at a street vendor for not being prompt in his hot dog delivery because he was too busy watching the towers fall. But perhaps that’s what was needed back then, I don’t know, I wasn’t there, but I can safely say that if someone created a movie like Mrs. Miniver in modern times if we were to get invaded, you’d probably see more Razzie Awards than Oscars handed out for it.
Let’s delve for a sec on that “strength of character” thing I mentioned because that seemed to be the central theme of the movie with the son who is adamant about going to war and proud to serve his country, the mom (Mrs. Miniver) who’s compassion and kindness makes her the anchor that keeps everyone around her in place, the dad who…is never there ‘cause the movie title is Mrs. Miniver and there’s no room for that asshole, and yadda yadda. I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt for the propaganda but none of this really ever went beyond the bounds of anything, there wasn’t any “wow, what an incredible woman” kind of moments like with Gone With the Wind, which loved to break the gender barrier about as much as Adam Lambert. It was just a movie that sent the message “here’s what you’re supposed to be doing right now. Here’s a family that did just that. Bad things still happened. It’s war, you have to come to terms with that.” Well thanks, assholes, you could have just put that on a television commercial, not bore me to death for 2 hours wondering if something amazing or at least interesting was supposed to happen. Love you too.
I feel bad that I’m giving this such the shit review I am, I really do. If The BackLOG were happening back then, I’d probably give this an 8 or something…and I’d get crucified for language, but fuck it. However, it’s 2011 and I’ve seen movies from that time period that were intriguing, heart-warming, challenged the status quo, and were just damn entertaining. Mrs. Miniver missed the mark across the board and for that it’s getting a measly 6 dustbusters out of 10.
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