Perfect Strangers (1945)'s comments

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Siskoid

1945's Vacation from Marriage (also known as Perfect Strangers) is kind of a public service announcement, in a way. By presenting a married couple who are changed by their experiences in the Royal Navy during World War II, it is sort of a comforting manual for people coming back from the war with similar feelings. I say comforting because the timid, boring couple played by Robert Donat and Deborah Kerr is changed for the better by their war experience. That may not always be the case, but they didn't grow apart so much as parallel to one another. And we see them change from dull but dependable, to decisive and adventurous people through the film, the anxiety over their reunion years later kept for the third act. The audience is in the know, so it kind of plays like an ironic comedy, but their expectations may well destroy their marriage anyway. Topical upon release, I don't think it's necessarily lost its relevance, and not just because people still go to war (here, the result is a bit of a romantic fantasy), but because people naturally change over time, and the message of the film is less about how the Wilsons changed so much as how they never properly communicated who they were in the first place.

4 years 10 months ago

MilenaFlaherty

Seen back in the day.

5 years 9 months ago