Hope And Glory

The acting was a little weak but this didn't spoil the film. A typical war time setting made it more realistic and very enjoyable.

More than just an anecdote this sums up a period in a man's boyhood with remarkable clarity - mixed-in with well-remembered boyhood fantasies. The White way of war is shown as acontextually as the claim that one is fighting for ones king or country or for self-defense. This theme of one group of White supremacists (the British Empire) battling another group (the Third Reich) is an acknowledged yet not-fully-explored theme.

This is a child's-eye view of an adult world - and that of children who refuse to grow up. Yet the limited world-view espoused makes this the kind of film Steven SPIELBERG used to make with its indefatigable child's perspective and low camera angles - and is just as good. Humorous throughout, this part-sentimentalizes the past; while revealing to us its importance for who we are now.

The characterization is a little weak but the performances are fine. Like all men raised largely in the presence of women, director John BOORMAN writes women as they really are. And like Moonstruck and This Happy Breed it celebrates the virtues of functional family life in fine form.

Hope and Glory offers an alternative view of WWII; one which claims that the war helped many people escape their mundane lives and offered them some much needed excitement. For mothers, it gave them the excuse not to worry about the latest fashions, whilst they allowed their daughters the chance to date charming foreign servicemen. Children could play in the bombed out streets and houses, they could watch foreign planes fly overhead, collect shrapnel and most evenings there would be a fireworks display overhead-the Germans bombing London. As the film is about children and teenagers growing up regardless of outside factors such as war, it doesn’t get bogged down in politics or righteous anti-war messages. The story concentrates on a boy and his excitement and sadness of living with his family throughout the Blitz. Over the course of the film they grow closer together and the war really enforces the local community spirit. I can imagine the war was like this for a majority of ordinary people and it’s great they have been represented on celluloid, rather than the usual heroic war characters of spitfire pilots, soldiers and submarine commanders.

For me this was one of the films I loved watching when growing up. Kids were proper kids with grazed knees and string in their pockets, mum's wore dresses and dads mowed th lawn, played cricket and chatted to the neighbours over the garden fence. It opitimised family life and it didn't matter that it was during war torn Britain.

Hope & Glory is set over the course of the first year of the war narrated and played out through the eyes of a young boy.There is no real plot just the normal everyday situations that affect a normal family and how they cope with them regardless of bombs being dropped.

This film is so charming with lots of wonderful humour and emotion running throughout it.

I've now introduced this to my own children and they loved it. Just goes to show you don't need SFX an all star cast or animation to sway the kids.

The film is certified 15 as there is a little swearing and a teenage daughter beginning her sexual journey but it's all in context and is there for representation not to shock.

The scenary, music and costumes for this film were quite good but it was all ruined by the terrible acting and a very weak storyline. I would not recommend this film to anyone - a complete waste of time.