Best Years of Our Lives (1946)

RATING:	100%
FORMAT:	DVD

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A very fine motion picture, indeed, dealing with the consequences of war and the affects on three representatives of the armed services after their return from combat - especially concerning their varying fortunes in reintegrating into civilian life.

On the whole, these three find they have changed more than they thought and that this means life can never be what it was before, nor can they resume their old lives where they left off. For its entire length, the movie plays like the last third of The Deer Hunter, as we see people out of sorts with their old - once-familiar - surroundings.

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A subtle well-played melodrama that carefully avoids too many Hollywood clichés to reveal a depth of characterization and human understanding rare in this most commercial of media. So much of the inner life of the characters is not only unstated but actually unstatable; requiring the best efforts of the actors. And, in the main, they deliver.

Tears are wrung from the audience without any false emotionalism because the sincerity of both the performances and the writing are self-evident. If only the film producers in California could produce movies like this more than once in a blue moon, my DVD player would be far less gloomy with what I put into it.

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Copyright © 2012 Frank TALKER. Permission granted to reproduce and distribute it in any format; provided that mention of the author’s Weblog (http://franktalker5.blogspot.com/) is included: E-mail notification requested. All other rights reserved.