This is part of a little goal I have this year to watch the Best Picture Oscar winners that I had not seen before. Spoilers ahead.
I didn’t have any preconceived notions about Mrs. Miniver but I thought at the very least it would be the story about a character named Mrs. Miniver. Mrs. Miniver is in it but it’s not really her story. It’s not about any one person in the Miniver family but a lot of episodic incidents that lead to a huge melodramatic climax. In the end this is a propaganda film, an advertisement to join or aid the war effort. After watching, I was pretty surprised to learn that not only was this the winner of the Best Picture Oscar but also the number one box office hit of the year. That’s astonishing when its competition were the crowd-pleasers Yankee Doodle Dandy, Road To Morocco and Holiday Inn. I guess people were more interested in melodrama than comedies or musicals back then. Maybe it was just the feeling of uncertainty that World War II brought that drove people to something inspirational. Plus it was relatable: an average family coming face to face with the conflicts of the world.
The film follows the Miniver family in a small town in England outside London. The Minivers have three children. Two are very young and the oldest is returning from college. His name is Vin and when he returns home he has his soul on fire with political convictions. He’s learned new things and isn’t afraid to show it off in conversation. When he meets Carol, the granddaughter of their neighbor Lady Beldon, he is very condescending to her. This tension sets up a romance between the two, as it usually did in movies like this.
As World War II begins, Vin enlists in the Air Force and he’s assigned to a base — wait for it — right near his house. That’s convenient! He’s so close he sends his parents messages with his plane engine to let them know he’s okay. During one of Vin’s return visits he proposes to Carol and she accepts. Lady Beldon confesses to Mrs. Miniver that she doesn’t want Carol to get married to a soldier because of her own heartbreaking experience. Her husband was killed in battle and she never recovered. She worries that Vin will be killed in a similar way and indeed, Carol worries about it as well. This sets up a cruel ironic plot twist that I did not care for.
Movies like this have B stories and there a couple of good ones here. Mr. Miniver aids in the Dunkirk evacuation in a little boat of his own. We don’t get to see it at all, presumably for budgetary reasons. Meanwhile back home, Mrs. Miniver finds a wounded German soldier hiding in the garden. He holds her hostage but passes out from his injury and she calls the police. The scene is all too brief but the exchange between these two characters could have been a great story in itself. Neither of these stories have a pay off except for Mr. & Mrs. Miniver recapping what happened to them later on, like the end of a goofy sitcom.
Movies like this also have C and D stories and one of those is about a kindly old gentleman named Mr. Ballard, played by Henry Travers (Clarence in It’s A Wonderful Life). He’s grown a rose and he wants to enter it into the Annual Flower Show which is a huge deal in this town. When we get to the show, which is almost at the climax of the film, they are down to two roses. I have to be honest, they looked the same to me. Lady Ballard not only gets to announce the winner but she is also in the competition herself as the owner of the other rose. The judges pick the best rose but she can disregard what they say and pick her own winner. Does this make sense? Anyway, she ignores the judges who picked her rose and decides to throw Mr. Ballard a bone and announces him the winner. By the way, he named the rose “Mrs. Miniver.” Is that why this is the name of the movie?
Just then sirens sound and everyone takes cover. The town is being bombed and attacked. Mrs. Miniver drives with Carol back to their house, both worried that Vin has been shot down when suddenly Mrs. Miniver sees that Carol has been shot by accident. She takes her home, but she dies soon afterward. After all the destruction, the Minivers go to church and they learn that along with Carol, an altar boy and Mr. Ballard were also killed. I found this a little distasteful and manipulative. Only the innocent civilians were killed in battle while the soldier, Vin, is unscathed and returns home. Could they be implying that you could be killed at home just as easily so you might as well join the service and be a hero? I don’t mean to be cynical but that’s what it felt like.
To summarize everything, the priest at the church delivers a speech where he says: “… this is not only a war of soldiers in uniform. It is the war of the people, of all the people. And it must be fought not only on the battlefield, but in the cities and in the villages, in the factories and on the farms, in the home and in the heart of every man, woman, and child who loves freedom. Well, we have buried our dead, but we shall not forget them. Instead, they will inspire us with an unbreakable determination to free ourselves, and those who come after us, from the tyranny and terror that threaten to strike us down. This is the People’s War. It is our war. We are the fighters. Fight it, then! Fight it with all that is in us! And may God defend the right.”
Well, that drives the message home. I would imagine this film meant a lot to people in 1942 because the U.S. had just been attacked at Pearl Harbor and soon after joined World War II. FDR saw the film as important in the war effort to boost morale and ordered mass prints to be sent out nationwide. Winston Churchill was also moved by it. It could be said that it influenced enough people to enlist and maybe this film assisted in some way to win the war. I’m not so sure. I think people were motivated plenty to get involved and this film was just some added motivational entertainment.
Looking back, it really softens the realities of combat. William Wyler, the director, joined the Army after finishing the film and directed documentaries overseas. In fact, that’s where he was the night he won the Oscar for Best Director. His experience in the Army shined a light on what the battlefield was really like. When he returned four years later with The Best Years Of Our Lives, he took a more realistic approach for the story of returning soldiers. It’s always easier to endorse warfare when you’re taking a backseat to it. John Wayne made a career out of it. But when you see the actual horrors, as Wyler and a few other directors did at the time, it was their responsibility to tell the truth.
