| RKO Radio Pictures | Release Date: December 25, 1946 | CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION | ||
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Positive:
17
Mixed:
0
Negative:
0
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Critic Reviews
Touching Academy Award winner that remains one of the best films ever made about returning veterans. The sterling cast includes Fredric March, Myrna Loy and Harold Russell. It's touching without being silly, and it has aged very well. [04 Jul 1989, p.23]
The great "coming home" film of World War II. [28 Nov 2008, p.C7]
A best picture Oscar winner, and one of the finest of all American films. [04 Aug 1989, p.37]
The Best Years of Our Lives runs almost three hours, but it doesn't seem nearly that long. The film is so involving that there's no temptation to glance at a watch, nor a need to get a snack or take a bathroom break. In fact, when it's over, there's almost a sense of disappointment that there aren't a few scenes left hiding on the other side of the closing credits. The feeling of warmth and satisfaction that accompanies the conclusion is the hallmark of a great drama - a distinction that anyone who has seen The Best Years of Our Lives will apply to this landmark production.
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If The Best Years of Our Lives emerges as a more contemporary-seeing film than almost anything else to which its ingredients could compare, it’s because of how it wrestles with the burden of patriotism. The nation’s problems are right there in plain sight, just as clear as cinematographer Gregg Toland’s typically precise deep-focus shots.
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The film is very proud of itself, exuding a stifling piety at times, but it works as well as this sort of thing can, thanks to accomplished performances by Fredric March, Myrna Loy, and Dana Andrews, who keep the human element afloat. Gregg Toland's deep-focus photography, though, remains the primary source of interest for today's audiences.
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It's not a great picture; it's too schematic and it drags on after you get the points. However, the episodes and details stand out and help to compensate for the soggy plot strands, and there's something absorbing about the banality of its large-scale good intentions; it's compulsively watchable.
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