The War Bride

I have just watched this film and I think it is brilliant. It begins with Lily (Anna Friel) meeting Charlie (a Canadian soldier) at a dance. She is swept off her feet and they are soon married. Charlie promises that he will get her away from London and look after her. As Charlie goes back to Europe to fight, Lily gives birth to a girl and soon after receives a letter instructing her to go and live with her Mother and Sister in-law in Canada. Charlie has led her to believe that he lives on a big Canadian ranch. However this is a slight exaggeration! Without giving to much away she is not made to feel welcome by any of Charlie's family or friends, but wins over their friendship by just being kind and human. Just as she wins them over, Charlie returns from the war, a broken man. The film portrays the emotions of wartime and you feel for every character involved in the film. I cannot recommend it enough. Anna Friel was excellent!

If you love 1940's era films, this is a must.

I liked this movie alot! I enjoy watching war movies and this one in particular was very interesting and man the cast was wonderful, couldn't be any better! I strongly recommend this movie!

***** out of *****

--and even though it is a war movie it has some extremely funny parts in it--

Can't believe I found a classic movie gem in the imdb 'freedive' section (classic because this movie is nearly 20 years old-hmm how time flies)! Never heard of this film probably because I'm American but it feels like a Lifetime Movie Network (LMN cable channel) tv movie. If you like over hyped, star-power films, then it' probably not your 'cuppa' tea. :D A simple beginning - but captures your attention with a twist of the unpredictable parts of life. She's a single lady enjoying life and dances herself into a love affair turned marriage with a cute soldier. Fast life for them. As you know-the old saying: if life gives us lemons we make lemonade. Movie explores what happened after these usually over-romanticized war marriages. Yet, I'm sure (if you consider the idea of marrying somebody you only knew for a few weeks) your mind concocts a sordid variety of possibilities: bad, good or worse.

The War Bride is so heartbreakingly stirring even after multiple viewings -- I go through a pile of hankies in a different spot each time I watch it -- because it's not only the story of one woman's life or even the lives of the 48,000 other British war brides who emigrated to Canada during WWII. The War Bride taps into a collective tale of the North American experience, of the pain and heartache and adventure of the people who came here looking for better lives, and left us, their children, in their wake, to uncover their secret stories.

The film makers have orchestrated a profound and moving journey, a film in which ideas and themes emerge from the interaction of human beings, and not in competition with them. Anna Friel, Brenda Fricker and Molly Parker form as potent a feminine triumvirate as the movies have seen in a very long time, powerful actresses who bring as much richness to the film's silences as to its words.

Superficially, the film could be seen as yet another variation on the "liberating outsider" scenario (a popular feminist theme exploited most recently in "Chocolat"), although in "The War Bride" there is considerably more going on than Lily simply teaching her in-laws how to cut loose and live a little. The weightier theme, which develops steadily throughout the film, deals with the inescapable effects of a global war and the extent to which a conflict can still wreak emotional havoc on those furthest removed from actual combat.