It's A Pity This Film Can't Be Appreciated More Nowadays

Rating: 8/10 (13 January 2010)

Sometimes a great film is made that can't be appreciated by future generations . THE BEST YEARS OF OUR LIVES is one of these movies . It was a truly great film when it was released in 1946 , a fact reflected in its massive box office draw and awards . There's two things producer Samuel Goldwyn , director William Wyler and screenwriter Robert E Sherwood are saying with this film :
The first thing is the sons , brothers , fathers and lovers who went away to fight in the war are not the same men who came back . The young men who fought and survived haven't in fact survived at all . They have more or less the same physical attributes but the war has killed part of them
The second thing is to tell the men that home no longer exists . The civilian population might have watched the newsreels of the war but they don't owe you anything . Try not to be too bitter about that
These themes run throughout the film some obvious , some latent . The most blatant example is Harold Russell as Homer whose casting sears itself in to the memory which is an image which the film is correctly remembered for . There's also the scene in the pharmacy with Homer and the " American patriot " which sums up the insanity of real politic in the new cold war where a year ago the Soviets were brothers in arms but are now the enemy . An audience growing up post 1945 might have very well forgotten that a long time ago the Soviets were the good guys
You must watch this empathising with an 1946 audience to get its full benefit and whilst it remains a good there's a couple of elements that stop it remaining a great one . First of all there's an overuse of intrusive melodramatic music that dictates how we should feel when in fact THE BEST YEARS OF OUR LIVES works best with its subtle elements . Secondly it suffers from being a bit too long and its storytelling could have done with at least 30 minutes cut out . That said it's still a very good film showing that the scars of war upon the individual and society never ever go away