Two Deities

Rating: 9/10 (20 January 2004)

Here's a movie most of the American population doesn't watch for 333 days of the year. I've found that watching this in late April is more rewarding than mid December.
This is your only spoiler warning...
That notion aside, I feared revisiting this movie because, like so many other films from this decade, I was worried it would show its age and thus kill itself in the process--fulfilling Bailey's wish.
Amazingly, that isn't the case. This is sentimentality done right in the vein of 'The Elephant Man'. Why? The frame of the story; for that reason you should see it and get some tears in the process.
First we have the setting of the world where Steward lives. Then there is Heaven. All our exposition of Stewart's world comes as a story being told to Clarence. Meanwhile, we--the audience--are tricked into accepting Stewart's life as reality until Capra slaps us upside the head and tells us "I'm not even started yet!"
When we finally do get to the plot, we have Clarence as our navigator. From God to the Angel. This is when George sees how the world would be without his influence.
Overall, skip 'Terminator' for your need to study the importance of one life. This is polarized like Capra's other works, but so interesting in the process. Can Spielberg do the same?
Final Analysis = = Learn from this...