Themes: Life on the Homefront, Sibling Relationships, Mischievous Children
Main Cast: Sebastian Rice-Edwards, Sarah Miles, David Hayman, Derrick O'Connor, Susan Wooldridge, Sammi Davis
Release Year: 1987
Country: UK
Run Time: 97 minutes
MPAA Rating: PG13
Plot
An affectionate reverie about war, childhood, and British stoicism, John Boorman's Hope and Glory is the veteran filmmaker's recollection of the bombing of London during World War II. Set on the British home front during the early days of the war, this episodic movie shows the blitz through the eyes of seven-year-old Billy Rohan (Sebastian Rice Edwards). At the war's outset, Billy finds himself alone in a house full of women, as all the men are called off to join the war effort. With wide-eyed wonder and an outsized imagination, Billy sees the war as a grand diversion, an extension of his world of knights, tin soldiers, and war games. As bombs fall and houses burn, Billy's mother (Sarah Miles) struggles to keep the family together in her husband's absence. Even as Billy seeks to escape the harem of aunts and sisters, Dawn (Sammi Davis), his older sister, falls for a Canadian soldier who gets her pregnant. After the Rohans' home catches fire (not, ironically, as the result of a bomb blast, but from a domestic accident), the family is forced to move in with Billy's cantankerous grandfather in the countryside, where they spend the rest of their summer and enjoy an unusual idyll amid the raging war. Nominated in 1987 for a Best Picture Academy Award, Hope and Glory proved to be another high point in the career of the remarkably protean Boorman. ~ Elbert Ventura, All Movie Guide
Review
A superlative memoir of life in London during World War II from the unique perspective of a child, this ravishing drama from writer/director John Boorman is his thinly veiled autobiography and an essential work from his canon, arguably his single most important film. Much has been made of the film's fine performances, and they are indeed unforgettable, with young Sebastian Rice-Edwards suitably wide-eyed and vigorous as the hero, and Sammi Davis and Ian Bannen turning in career-high work as the main character's trampy sister and eccentric grandfather, respectively. What makes Hope and Glory (1987) a truly remarkable picture, however, is Boorman's keenly remembered, written, and re-created sense of a child's perception and how the mechanics of the adult world intrude upon it. Shifts in tone and mood occur rapid-fire at times, moving from such extremes as horror to humor to wonder in the same scene, as the filmmaker recalls the instant fluctuations of temperament and feeling that wash through a boy, particularly one subjected to the sensory overload of the London Blitz. When the film moves in its third act to a genteel country home where safety is found with a protective overseer, the change is jarring, but intentionally so. Presenting war as a joy and a thrill is an audacious act of artistic honesty and sets Hope and Glory (1987) in the same category as the same year's similarly underrated, under-seen Empire of the Sun (1987). ~ Karl Williams, All Movie Guide
Ian Bannen - George; Jean-Marc Barr - Cpl. Bruce Carey; Anne Leon - Bill's Grandmother; Amelda Brown - Hope; Jill Baker - Faith; Katrine Boorman - Charity; Geraldine Muir - Sue Rohan; Nicky Taylor - Roger; Gerald James - Headmaster; Sara Langton - Pauline; Barbara Pierson - Teacher; Charley Boorman - Luftwaffe Pilot; Susan Brown - Mrs. Evans; Arthur Cox - Fireman; Colin Dale - Roger's Gang; Shelagh Fraser - WVS Woman; John Boorman - Narrator; Ann Thornton - Honeymoon Couple; William Armstrong - Canadian Sergeant; Andrew Bicknell - Honeymoon Couple; Imogen Cawrse - Jennifer; Christine Crowshaw - Pianist; Peter Hughes - Policeman; Nicholas Askew; Colin Higgins - Clive's Friend
Credit
Don Dossett - Art Director, Mary Selway - Casting, Anthony Van Laast - Choreography, Michael Dryhurst - Co-producer, Shirley Russell - Costume Designer, Andy Armstrong - First Assistant Director, John Boorman - Director, Michael Dryhurst - Second Unit Director, Ian Crafford - Editor, Jake Eberts - Executive Producer, Edgar Gross - Executive Producer, Peter J. Martin - Composer (Music Score), Peter J. Martin - Musical Direction/Supervision, Anna Dryhurst - Makeup, Anthony Pratt - Production Designer, Philippe Rousselot - Cinematographer, John Boorman - Producer, Paul Ciani - Producer, Joanne Woollard - Set Designer, Rodney Fuller - Special Effects, Phil Stokes - Special Effects, Mike Collins - Special Effects, Peter Handford - Sound/Sound Designer, John Boorman - Screenwriter, John Harris - Additional Cinematography
Beginning just before the start of World War II, the movie tells the story of the Rowan family: Bill, his sisters Sue and Dawn, and his parents Grace and Clive, living in a suburb of London. After the war starts, Clive joins the army, whilst Grace continues to watch over the children.
Seen through the eyes of 10-year-old Billy, the "fireworks" provided by the Blitz every night are as exciting as they are terrifying. His family do not see things in quite the same way as the bombs continue to drop, their will to survive brings them closer together. The nightly raids do not provide the only drama, however, as his older sister, Dawn, falls for a Canadian soldier and finding her life turned upside down, soon discovers how valuable family is. The family eventually moves outside of their London suburban home to the home of Grace's parents when their home burns down (not in an air raid, but in an ordinary house fire).
The "newsreel" footage shown in the local cinema contains scenes from the 1969 film Battle of Britain.
Critical response
The film was reviewed, favorably, by the critic Pauline Kael in her collection of movie reviews, Hooked. "It's hard to believe that a great comedy could be made of the blitz but John Boorman has done it. In his new, autobiographical film, he has had the inspiration to desentimentalize wartime England and show us the Second World War the way he saw it as an eight year old. The war frees the Rowans from the dismal monotony of their pinched white-collar lives. He doesn't deny the war its terrors. Yet he gives everything a comic fillip. That's the joy of the movie: the war has its horrors, but it also destroys much of what the genteel poor like Grace Rohan (Sarah Miles), have barely been able to acknowledge they wanted destroyed. It's like a plainspoken, English variant of the Taviani brothers' The Night of the Shooting Stars. " [3]
Release
The film was released from Columbia Pictures, but the film rights were previously owned by Nelson Entertainment and currently by MGM.
