Artivels Undescribable Perfection

Stevecorp Don't listen to the negative reviews

Deanna There are moments in this movie where the great movie it could've been peek out... They're fleeting, here, but they're worth savoring, and they happen often enough to make it worth your while.

Juana what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.

Morten_5 With tons of warmth and tenderness, English writer-director John Boorman delivers a charming portrayal of childhood and family life in wartime. Without getting too saccharine, the film manages to engage, entertain and even make you laugh.

alyssa-viot The scene is seen through the eyes of ten-year-old Billy who is confronted with real life during the second world war. He discovers all the horrors and absurdities of an adult's life and sexuality too, because his sister is running after soldiers. This film shows that Billy is a little independent because, when is father goes to France, he is the only boy in the family, so that shows John Boorman, when he was a child, lived with females and had to go to school with is sister and his mother was staying at home. That shows that Billy was confronted with war and life too. This film is accessible to all and it should be seen. It's a beautiful movie but there are a lot of absurd scenes.

tomgillespie2002 There is something so distinctly British about the Home Front during World War II. Perhaps it was the movies that portrayed the typically 'stiff upper-lipped' Brits holding their heads high and getting on with their everyday lives, not letting the fact that the country was being destroyed by German bombs get them down. And so came John Boorman's semi-autobiographical account of a child growing up during the Blitz, trying to capture that old-school spirit, and giving a fresh perspective from a particularly naive child's point of view.The film follows the Rowan family whose youngest child Bill (Sebastian Rice-Edwards) finds the frequent air raids and destruction as exciting as it is terrifying. His sister Dawn (Sammi Davis) falls for a Canadian solider who is soon called back into action. His father Clive (David Hayman) volunteers for the army and heads off to fight until he's deemed too old and supports the war effort from an administrative angle. And struggling to hold the whole family together is the mother Grace (Sarah Miles), who in her loneliness seeks out the comfort of Clive's best friend who she had feelings for back before she got together with Clive.Nominated for 5 Academy Awards, including Best Picture, I was expecting a definitive account of Britain during WWII. What I witnessed was a badly acted, amateurish and poorly scripted film that I found reminiscent of an ITV drama with a slightly bigger budget that normal. I was genuinely surprised, as I'd heard nothing but good things about it. It felt that one scene led to the next without any control or idea of where it was heading. The relationship between Dawn and the Canadian soldier is every bit as predictable and tedious as you would expect, and I failed believe any of it. The third act of the film moves the action to the granddad's countryside home, and meanders there for a long time without much happening at all.The film is also guilty of some truly terrible acting. Decent child actors are always hard to find, but Rice-Edwards doesn't even remotely convince as an actor. He delivers his lines with a rigid blankness and is not able to channel his character's emotions through to the audience. And the late Ian Bannen playing Grandfather George suffers from a bad script and bad direction. He is meant to be the lovably grouchy old man, but stomping around muttering inaudible grumblings over and over and over again is neither funny or convincing.I'll stop the moaning there I think, because there were things I also liked about the film, it's just that the negatives irritated me so much that they overshadowed the positives. A stray weather balloon causing havoc amongst the rooftops whilst the family watch with glee, and the Canadian solider pulling faces through the family window while they stand straight-faced listening to 'God Save The Queen' are a couple of the rather wonderful and funny moments of the film. And the forbidden and potential love affair between Grace and her husband's best friend seen through the eyes of a maturing Bill is cleverly explored only in glimpses.Overall an okay movie, which I will no doubt watch again in a few years to see if I've just missed something, giving the overwhelmingly positive critical response the film received. But for now I'll stick to my guns.www.the-wrath-of-blog.blogspot.com

Terrell Howell (KnightsofNi11) War does odd things to people. And by people I mean not only the participants of the war, but also the spectators. The direct onlookers of war will react in all sorts of misunderstood ways. Perhaps the group with the oddest reaction would be the children. They have so little insight into the true gravity of war that it becomes a game to them without the proper understanding. This is what Hope and Glory centers on. It's the story of Bill, a young boy living in London during World War II. He and his family are surviving in the midst of the incessant German air raids of the city. They must all cope with the destruction around them and it all plays out very offbeat and awkwardly lighthearted. I was a little put off from this film and very underwhelmed for its entirety, save a scene here and there.First off, I wasn't that impressed by any of the characters. They all seemed to be pretty uninteresting or just annoying. The family consists of the mother, who is not a very likable or memorable character. She serves her purpose to the themes of the film and thats about it. The father is not present for a lot of the film because he joins the military. This happens to make him one of the more interesting characters. He has an underdeveloped relationship with his son, Bill, who is the main character of the film. His character is intriguing because he and the other boys he is friends with encompass the entire meaning of the film which is war through the eyes of a child. The other two children are to girls. The older sister is incredibly obnoxious and I never once cared for anything that happened with her. The younger sister doesn't do or say much and seems to be another character that serves her purpose and moves on from there. There are other characters who spring up in the film and all of them further the plot in different ways, but I couldn't emotionally invest in any of their relationships.The plot of this film has a lot of potential and could have been really interesting, but it seemed to miss the mark a lot. There were moments in the film where I saw where the director was going and I could make out the point he was trying to make. Some of these statements on war and childhood had the potential to be quite profound, and with some fleshing out, they really are. But the execution just wasn't quite good enough to really spike my interest during the film. The film also seemed to drag a lot as it went on. Towards the end I started to wonder where any of this was actually going, and whether we were leading to some actual climax or not. Then the film ended suddenly and without any kind of climax or resolution, leaving me underwhelmed.I wish I could have liked Hope and Glory more but I could never get into it. It was too easy to lose interest in and not a whole lot happened to keep the film lively. The characters weren't engaging enough to keep that dynamic of the film very entertaining either. Hope and Glory has a lot going for it and could have been a lot better. I can see why some people would like this film a lot, and they have every right to. I myself didn't get much out of this film. Plus, it's not really my cup of tea.