The Happy Breed (1944)

I guess you call this a family bi-op. It's under 2 hours, so it doesn't quite qualify as an epic. And the actual period of time it covers is very strange. The World Wars are there as almost bookends, but the film doesn't use them as the bookends. Rather, it uses the period of time the family spent in their flat as the beginning and ending points.

So much happens in this family in roughly a 20-year period, because that's all there is, 20 years. It honestly feels like it should be a 30- or 40-year period. It feels that way because Frank and Ethel Gibbons (Robert Newton and Celia Johnson) age much more than 20 years, and Frank is on the brink of retirement, which should put him closer to 60 than 40.

Overall, I guess I like that focus on the family rather than on world events. Of course the family is impacted by what's going on in the world around them, but the drama of their day-to-day lives is what matters most. They are aware of Hitler and the prospect of a new war, but that's not necessarily something that they dwell on. What they dwell on is what's going on with their children.

Queenie (Kay Walsh) wants more. She won't marry Billy (John Mills) because he's just a sailor, and he won't have the ability to give her the lifestyle that she wants. In the end, her unwillingness to live the lifestyle appropriate to her place and status costs her a lot of heartache. Eventually, she and Billy will get together.

Why does Billy still want her? That's not ever explained. I suppose it's true love, but he accepts her more quickly and more freely than her own mom, who has disowned her for years.

The family dynamic is what the movie is about, and yet, the focus on the family also feels oddly disconnected, too. It's hard to explain. Maybe it's more appropriate to say that the film simply shows the passing of time. For a brief period of time, this family occupied the flat, and now they're leaving to be replaced by the next family. Their story is "important," but it will also soon be forgotten. Ten or twenty years later, maybe not even that long, no one in the neighborhood will remember that they were ever there. They will disappear.

Human lives are like sand art.

Rating: 3/5 stars

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