Claysaba Excellent, Without a doubt!!

Philippa All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

Kinley This movie feels like it was made purely to piss off people who want good shows

Fleur Actress is magnificent and exudes a hypnotic screen presence in this affecting drama.

evanston_dad I watched "Tea and Sympathy" within a day or two of also watching "The Band Wagon," and the two films together went a long way toward increasing my admiration of Vincente Minelli, a filmmaker who I haven't generally cared much for in the past.Was any actress more elegantly luminous than Deborah Kerr? In this, she plays a faculty wife at a preppy college who feels pity for a young man (John Kerr) who is ostracized by the other boys for his sissy tendencies. The film is an overt exploration of masculine insecurity at a time when gender roles weren't allowed to be fluid at all. Deborah is simply marvelous, as she always was, while John Kerr is a little less successful, his acting a bit more obvious and heavy handed. But the film overall is wonderful, and should be seen by anyone who's interested in films that explore the ugly side of the middle class American dream that was so heavily trumpeted in the 1950s, a dream that was really a prison for so many.Grade: A

Tim Dean Although 'Tea and Sympathy" is extremely dated it is a very valuable social document. My biggest problem is the age of the cast. Most of the"schoolboys" seem to be over 20 years of age. Even John Kerr, in his starring role seems several years older than the 18 years he is supposed to be. I came to this film after seeing the 1958 musical "South Pacific" for the first time ever, in which John Kerr plays Marine Lieutenant Joe Cable. He is my idea of an admirable young man of innate integrity - handsome, dignified, the epitome of the most noble type of young American serviceman. 'Tea and Sympathy' is clearly a stage play in essence, but that's the mode in which I choose to enjoy it. The world of today (2016) is awash with LGBT knowledge of gay realities, but in the 1950s, clearly, nobody understood much about such things and Hollywood was terrified of the subject. One good result of this is that, given the Tom Lee character is not even slightly gay, John Kerr - super-straight in real life - is perfect casting! Deborah Kerr plays her role as the Housemaster's understanding wife with great verve. I bought a region-free DVD online - The remastered edition from Warner Brothers Archive. (Warnerarchive.com)

writers_reign Time has been less than kind to this movie which must appear as something of a cross between satire and parody to an audience today. In 1953 on Broadway Robert Anderson's play - featuring the three principals from the film, Deborah Kerr, John Kerr and Leif Ericson - was a sensitive treatment of a still sensitive subject and even in 1956 Anderson was forced to sanitize his screen adaptation; in the play Tom albeit naively has been swimming in the nude with a Music teacher who subsequently lost his job, a much sounder - though still slightly suspect - basis for marking him queer, and his nickname was 'Grace', based on nothing more sinister than his favourable comments about a Grace Moore movie. Here, Anderson substitutes the slightly bizarre 'Sister Boy' for Grace. Perhaps the worst sin of all is the framing device whereby Tom attends a Class Reunion as a grown man and then thinks back to his time as a tormented schoolboy, but worse is to come; in the play Anderson came up with one of the all-time Great curtain lines: In a mixture of compassion, admiration and a need to make Tom realise that he is NOT gay she offers herself to him with the lines 'years from now, when you talk about this ... and you will, be kind'. Minnelli includes both scene and line - albeit switching the location from indoors to outdoors - but then instead of FADE OUT he returns to the present with Tom calling in to see Kerr's house-master husband who gives him a letter that Laura has mailed from wherever she is. The letter serves to tell us that Tom is now married (so he CAN'T be gay, right) and has written a book about his time at the school and his relationship with Laura. Totally unnecessary and making what once must have been a half-decent film even more risible.

Shuggy I read the play when I was Tom Lee's age and deeply closetted, and it had a devastating effect: "At last someone understands: just because I'm not like the others doesn't mean I'm - heaven forbid - gay." I thought the play was great - liberating, even.I saw the film (on TV, with distractions) some 25 years after it was made, myself on the brink of coming out, and noted that it was much less clear that it was about homosexuality than the play had been. Tom's sexual orientation had been blurred down to the question of whether he was "a regular guy" or not. Key speeches like Laura's challenge to Bill's sexuality were missing. And Laura's letter at the end seemed just moralistic, and an obvious sop to the censors.To see the film today, out and proud, and with the benefit of nearly 50 years of hindsight, I find myself agreeing with many of the comments above, both positive and negative. The film is hard to watch because it is so overwrought. That is easier to understand when you know that all three leads are reprising their stage roles. Even so, there is a desperate tension running right through it. With the possible exception of the faculty wives, not a single person in it is comfortable with their sexuality. The guys are, without exception, over-anxious to prove something, and Laura is frustrated. (Ellie Martin at least knows what she wants - a radio that works - and what she wants to pay to get it.) Overlaid on this, nothing can be explicit, everyone talks all the time in circumlocutions. Of course, that was the rule in films of those days, and possibly real life as well. Therein lies a contradiction that can only be resolved from outside the film and in its future, now. The film was trying to liberate people like me (and heterosexual non-conformists) while staying within the confines of a deeply closetted and homophobic film industry.Should you see this film? As a piece of gay history, perhaps. As a commentary on a homophobic time, it is instructive, both for what it says and doesn't say. As a worthwhile drama that will involve you in its issues, no. Has it anything worthwhile to say, as someone says above, about the importance of love? If you concentrate on Deborah Kerr's performance and her predicament, perhaps, but it's like watching a beautiful butterfly struggling in a pitcher-plant.