Eh, these British kitchen sink movies from the 1950s and 1960s I guess just don't do it for me.
Laurence Olivier acts up a storm and won a Best Actor Oscar nomination for his performance as a washed up music hall performer in this dreary, depressing snapshot of post-WWII England. Joan Plowright is his daughter, and the bulk of the movie is about her navigating her contentious relationship with her dad. There are also some plot threads about one brother who's gone off to fight in a war and another brother who works for their dad's ailing musical revue. Like all of these kitchen sink films, the emphasis is on how depressing everything is. There's absolutely no levity, and no real reason to care about what happens to any of these sad people.
These movies tapped into a certain psychological state affecting Britain in the years after the war, a topic that I actually find interesting and worth exploring. But I have yet to completely enjoy one of the movies that resulted from it. I really felt my attention wandering during this one.
Grade: C
Laurence Olivier acts up a storm and won a Best Actor Oscar nomination for his performance as a washed up music hall performer in this dreary, depressing snapshot of post-WWII England. Joan Plowright is his daughter, and the bulk of the movie is about her navigating her contentious relationship with her dad. There are also some plot threads about one brother who's gone off to fight in a war and another brother who works for their dad's ailing musical revue. Like all of these kitchen sink films, the emphasis is on how depressing everything is. There's absolutely no levity, and no real reason to care about what happens to any of these sad people.
These movies tapped into a certain psychological state affecting Britain in the years after the war, a topic that I actually find interesting and worth exploring. But I have yet to completely enjoy one of the movies that resulted from it. I really felt my attention wandering during this one.
Grade: C