Os Melhores Anos de Nossa Vida

Though we had a plethora of films about troops returning from the Vietnam war and trying to re-integrate back into their societies, most of which were hard-hitting, angry voices against War, here is arguably the original - and best.

Definitely a family orientated movie (Cert U) this will appeal to and find favour with all ages, but don't start thinking that this is all gooey, slushy nonsense. There's some quite hard-hitting topics covered, even by today's standards and of course, with our minds on our current troops in Iraq/Afghanistan, equally relevant.

Multi-stranded, which each of the three G.I.'s immediate and extended families and friends being examined, it's about them coping, with varying degrees of success, with home life and getting jobs, now that the War is ended. It's the little observations and stories around them that are so fascinating, as the Heroes of yesterday are now anything but when it comes finding new purpose in a changed world.

The cast is exemplary, not necessarily the biggest stars of the day but the most believable and natural for their roles. Dana Andrews, Myrna Loy and Fredric Marsh are the ones most easily recognisable and their appearances convey a sort of reassuring familiarity and normality. They're all excellent, of course.

Though long, at nearly 3 hours, William Wyler's easy going but assured and tight direction keeps things flowing nicely and it never drags. This, my second viewing, is an enjoyable one as the first and if anything I'm more at ease with it.

Though obviously not as exciting or dramatic as other 'normal' war films, it's a tragedy that it's not more well known. I've never seen it to ever have been on TV, or to my recollection, even Sky Movies, for that matter. Any movie that won 7 Oscars and is currently no. 180 in the top 250 IMDb's films of all time, voted by its voters (us, the public) is hardly one of minority interest.

A friend I lent my DVD to watched it with his family and normally they only go for current films, or ones they know, but they not only enjoyed it, but felt enormously moved by it, too.

If you haven't seen The Best Years... yet, make a mental note to do so. Your life won't change by doing so, but it really is worth the 3 hours of it that it will take. You certainly can't say the same about every film out there....

I saw the movie again recently. I always love it. It's touching, has great music, scope and complexity. The film is alive in its human details. But what especially stood out to me this time was how amazing Dana Andrew's performance is. His wife has cheated on him, he's suffering post-war trauma, and can't find a job--but he's still charming and funny. Even though his opinion of himself is pretty low, he keeps going ahead. I love how self-denigrating the character is, how he suspects he's pretty worthless, while his parents, friends and Peggy (but not his wife) see him as extraordinary. And Andrews does it all while being understated and real. Yeah, Dana!

My parents were of that generation, and the movie was cathartic for returning veterans and their families and friends; it's small wonder that it eclipsed <i>It's A Wonderful Life</i>, which arguably is a better picture. But at the time, the movie had some shocking elements to it. In fact, my mother (roughly the character Peggy's age then) saw it against her parents' wishes.

Back in 1946, it was a jaw-dropper to have a character in a movie utter the word "divorce" or to aver an intent to break up a marriage -- such ideas just weren't voiced in films then. To modern audiences, they come across as melodramatic, but I'm told they elcited genuine gasps from audiences then.

Even more astonishing was William Wyler's decision to cast real-life amputee Harold Russell in the key role of a returning Navy veteran. Until <i>The Battle of Britain</i>, in which an actual, disfigured RAF veteran made a cameo appearance, directors didn't make those sorts of courageous gestures. The intimate yet innocent scene in which Homer Parrish (Russell) demonstrates his helplessness to his fiancé Wilma Cameron (Cathy O'Donnell) is beautiful, heartbreaking and uplifting; later, during the wedding scene, Russell stumbled over a line in saying the vows, and Wyler left the humanizing mistake in, God bless him for it.

Returning to life at home for our overseas fighting men was not as easy as we here at home may have assumed,and McKinlay Kantor thought it important to write about this fact.The novel caught the attention of Hollywood and soon we were seeing it well illustrated on the big screen.War changes a man to one degree or another,either physically or emotionally or perhaps both.The passage of time doesn't help either,and things at home change a little.Their children grow,and they were unable to be there to witness it firsthand.Again,this makes the adjustment harder.For 4 years,all they knew was war,and they find themselves faced with the impossible task of picking up where they had left off.It's a worthwhile story to engross yourself in.While much of what you see here represents a world that does not exist anymore,the difficulties of adjusting to life at home after war ring true still today.

In 2004, I wrote the following statements on an IMDb message board when a user wondered if The Best Years of Our Lives was a forgotten movie:

***** To me watching this movie is like opening up a time capsule. I think in many ways "The Best Years of Our Lives" is probably one of the more fascinating character studies and it holds up extremely well as a look at life in the US in the mid-1940s after WWII. I believe "Coming Home" and "The Deer Hunter", both released in 1978, were the most recent films that were closest in capturing the numerous issues of military men returning from war that were brought up in "The Best Years of Our Lives".

What really impressed me was watching the movie in its entirety when I was in college around 1980-81 and many if not all of the college students applauded at the end of the movie.

This movie still packs a wallop and I'm very happy to read in other posts other users feeling of a movie that will definitely stand the test of time. *****

I'm very happy to see the movie ranked near the top 100 movies on IMDb and AFI. Also, though it was in competition with what eventually became a Christmas classic, It's a Wonderful Life, arguably, The Best Years of Our Lives' Oscar wins, including Best Picture, were very well-deserved.

I've just seen the film again in 2005 and after almost 60 years, The Best Years of Our Lives is still a powerful, beautifully acted and well-crafted motion picture.