The best movie about life after WW II

Rating: 10/10 (1 April 2000)

This is perhaps the best movie about WW II. Many movies and popular treatments of the immediate post-war period overlook the tremendous uncertainty that faced returning servicemen and their families. It was believed by many that a recession or depression would follow the war, leaving veterans with no jobs, and divorce rates went way up as wartime couples (much like in this movie) found the going tough during peacetime. Not until after this movie was made did it become clear that the economy would do well and that the GIs, supported in large part by the GI Bill, would come to prosper and spark the remarkable postwar expansion of the economy. This film's strength is the frank way in which people's apprehensions affected their personal lives.