Is it me?

Rating: 4/10 (26 February 2003)

I hesitated before writing this, because I really didn't much like this movie, and I assumed at first that it was because I find its politics so appalling.
But the more I think about it, the more I realize that even cinematically, I found it compelling only on a purely visual level (Ford's movies are always at least visually compelling).
I think Ford spent so much effort trying to make his characters into symbols that he failed to make them people. At no point did I care whether the Joads made it to California; the deaths of the old folks made no impression on me. The villainy of the local cops and those who ran the work camps was much mitigated by its obvious artifice. The only emotion any of these people inspired in me was a deep desire to punch that self-righteous jerk Tom Joad right in the mouth--which I don't think was what Ford was going for. I have to admit that I did like John Carradine, but I always like John Carradine.
And when the Joads drove into that federal government work camp, and it was like arriving in heaven with an obvious FDR lookalike (sans wheelchair, of course) as God, I completely lost it. That was about the unintentionally funniest thing I've ever seen in a classic film.
Am I just too cynical?