The Best Years of Our Lives (1946)

☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ½

The Best Years of Our Lives (1946) – W. Wyler

I usually tread carefully around multiple award winners (seven Oscars for this one), just because they sometimes err on the side of cloying sentimentality and populist opinion, losing some edge in exchange.  However, this is not true of The Best Years of Our Lives, the story of three servicemen returning from WWII to uncertain futures back in the US.  Indeed, the title itself is ironic. Under ex-Air Force officer Willy Wyler’s direction and following Robert E. Sherwood's script, the film pulls no punches in its uncompromising view of the difficulties facing those returning from war, whether they be blue collar (Dana Andrews), middle class (Harold Russell), or better off (Fredric March).  After falling in together on their way back to “Boone City” (a stand in for Cincinnati, more or less) from points overseas, the three leads stick with each other and we follow their intersecting paths.  Russell has lost both hands (true of the actor as well as the character) and has trouble accepting his girl’s love thinking it only pity. March takes to drinking and has a run in with his boss at the bank over small loans to returning G.I.’s (but he has the support of his lovely wife Myrna Loy and daughter Teresa Wright).   Andrews suffers from PTSD, discovers that his war bride is a party girl who wants no part of him now that he is broke, and can’t even keep his old job as a soda jerk at the drugstore (now taken over by a corporate chain – a sign of things to come).  Although the film follows these men (and their families) long enough to see them start to adapt, I agree with critic Kent Jones that there is plenty of evidence that things may not go well for them in the future.  And as critic Jonathan Rosenbaum points out, the film offers an eye-opening vantage point for the real lived experiences of that generation, quite different from the burnished brass-plated nostalgia that often passes for reality.  Moreover, I fear that society continues to offer an insensitive cold shoulder to our returning vets and ever will it be thus. This film could offer a useful corrective.