The War Bride

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--

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.

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.

This film suffers a bit from being a cheap TV movie - historically its a tad rough around the edges and the storyline is predictable and at times even a little dull. The crux of the story is about the strained relationship between a war bride who arrives at a broken down farm in Alberta, the home of her husband's family, in 1943. Her whirlwind courtship, marriage and pregnancy is not met with approval from the Canadian family and although they loosen up towards her, it takes two years to do so. During this time there are many scenes where you just want something more to happen other than whispered snide comments and hate-filled glares. I am not quite sure why this particular story was chosen as the characters don't really engage each other. Brenda Fricker was almost wasted in her role as the husband's mother but even though she was given few lines she still managed to steal most of the scenes! From real accounts I have read, there were jealous and snippy Canadians who felt some of the English war brides were predatory fortune hunters and there were equally as many English war brides who saw Canadians as prudish and uncultured hicks. However, there were far more stories of love and support, and appreciation and adaptability. I know this film needed drama and used a storyline that would provide this but the film would have benefited from some real events relayed from war bride memoirs. I suspect the story was written with little research from period accounts and that's too bad because there is a wealth of material out there that would have made for some great scenes.

Regardless, I still think the film needed to be made and I am glad somebody did it. It was overall enjoyable to watch.

Anna Friel stars in classy wartime drama The War Bride. She plays Lily, an orphan who suddenly finds herself married, with child and living with hostile in-laws in the wilds of Canada. Thematically similar to Friel's Land Girls, this is a much more accomplished affair. Her star turn is well complimented by Brenda Fricker and Molly Parker as her agitated in- laws.

In what could have been a very pedestrian story, timing is key. Director Lyndon Chubbuck handles this carefully, leaving it until wartime London has become familiar to whip us away to Canada and then leaving it until Lily is finally at home to rock the boat again. To guide us through this we are offered no easy timescale; no regular radio broadcasts counting down the end of the war, no montage of letters to mark the time Lily and Charlie (Aden Young) are apart. A quick blast of a public information film dissolves into Lily arriving in Canada and the rest of the film rests almost entirely on Friel's performance. Portraying a delicate balance of European femme fatal and ordinary London lass, she gets it right every time.

Additional to her fish out of water dilemma is Lily's growing attraction to local boy Joe (Loren Dean). Lily, who dresses in risqué clothing to provoke the old-fashioned community, is continually referred to as a 'tart' and because of Friel's balanced performance and the juxtaposition of modern and wartime values the film's ending is genuinely uncertain.

This is a war-story with no war. The only death takes place off camera, the only major disfigurement is the result of polio not violence. With no pretensions to heroics or history, The War Bride is a simple story, well told.