Since this miniseries is based on a Judith Kranz story, you can expect a lot of steam, several illicit affairs, and a fair amount of incest. This is a very soapy melodrama that a lot of women will love, but if it's not your cup of tea, you should know from the get-go. The villain is one-dimensional, the heroes never get a break, and family secrets are revealed in the worst way. Hugh Grant is so evil, it's a wonder he even had a career after this and wasn't typecast because of his very convincing performance. You'll want to throw things at your television, you'll want to scream at him, and you'll want terrible things to happen to him. Isn't that one of the necessities of a melodrama?
The setting of Till We Meet Again spans from pre-WWI to post-WWII. It's a very romantic time period, with soldiers leaving women behind and never knowing if they're to return. When high-class Lucy Gutteridge falls for a slimy actor, she runs away from home assuming he'll marry her. He doesn't, and instead they live in sin together in Paris. When the war breaks out, Lucy meets handsome soldier Michael York and falls in love with him instead. He's married, though, and has an infant son. He tries to get a divorce, but after his reckless wife kills herself, his parents take his son away from him and quickly turn the boy against his father. That's just the beginning! I haven't told you anything about Michael and Lucy's two daughters, who grow up to be played by Courtney Cox and Mia Sara.
As a girly girl who loves everything soapy and melodramatic, I really enjoyed Till We Meet Again. Of course, there were certain parts I couldn't actually enjoy because they were upsetting, but that's also what makes a great drama. Characters suffer losses, and those injuries only make you root more for them. As I always feel in generational sagas, the early historical parts were more interesting than the modern ones. I could have watched hours more about Michael and Lucy, rather than Mia and her Hollywood career. The age makeup was excellent, and seeing the parents stoop and wrinkle as the years go by was a lot of fun. The costumes were also beautiful and very authentic looking, and the automobiles and airplanes really took me back in time to the first half of the century.
As authentic as the costumes and cars are, there are a couple of major faux pas: men didn't wear mullets in the 1930s, and women didn't belt 1980s-style ballads in music halls in the 1910s. Popular songs sounded like "Don't Sit Under the Apple Tree" and "You're the Cream in My Coffee", with singing styles like Edith Piaf and Ruth Etting. If Lucy Gutteridge performed the way she did in the miniseries, audiences wouldn't even applaud for her. Once Courtney Cox got in the picture and sang songs around the piano with the Air Force boys, they finally got the memo and sang WWII style songs.
If this type of saga appeals to you, rent this soapy miniseries and invite your girlfriends over. Literary types might want to find a copy of the book, since I'm sure it goes into even more detail. I would probably watch it again, even though Courtney was still very green as an actress. She was very pretty, so you could just focus on her lovely face rather than the delivery of her lines.
Kiddy Warning: Obviously, you have control over your own children. However, due to incest and a rape scene, I wouldn't let my kids watch it.
