Great performances and a thoughtful meditation on whether war can ever be "civilized."

An epic that details the life of an upper class English soldier over 40 years. The film has a flashback structure that places scenes around major events in three wars without actually depicting anything significant from these events. The central character, General Candy, is initially played as a caricature of upper British class nobility and there is a lot of humour derived from the character throughout. But as much as the film makes fun of some of these traits, it equally humanises Candy as the story develops. The film depicts his relationship with three women over the course of the film, all played by Deborah Kerr who convinces as three distinct characters in one film, but the emotional centre to the film is his friendship with Walbrook, which gradually becomes deeply moving. These relationships lead to a wonderful reevaluation of the character and the “death” of the caricature by the close of the film. Walbrook in particular is fantastic with two key moments in which he delivers a monologue concerning his life after World War I and another that epitomises one of the themes of the film - the changing nature of warfare that Candy in particular seems unwilling to acknowledge. There is also a very clever balancing act that the film does in exploring the younger generation’s perception of an older generation, initially encouraging the audience to join with the young soldiers mocking Candy’s steadfast refusal to change, but gradually leading the audience to sympathise, if not quite agree with his position. That this was made in the middle of World War II gives the context of the film an added dimension, but this is still as thematically relevant today as it was at the time. Wonderful film.

quite a funny light hearted movie at first. while it never gets dark and always stay light hearted, funny scenes become less and less as the story goes. in the early acts i found myself laughing to things often, but later it became less and less. the story is good but its not a epic however. even if its a entire lifetime. there is a bit of war time propaganda messaging going on as well but i think its valid given the time and circumstances. ww2 wasnt even finished nor hitler was dead when this movie came out

Deborah Kerr Deborah Kerr Deborah Kerr , i hope everyone understands :)

Fine movie, but didn't like it as much as I wanted to. The tone here felt off, throughout, with a jangling, jaunty score frequently undercutting the more serious dramatic moments. But even those moments felt undercut by the hammy, perpetually upbeat performances--especially by Livesey. By the end I could sort of see what the movie was trying to go for, and I could appreciate it at a distance, but it never felt like it quite landed for me. Might be worth a rewatch.