Morten_5 With tons of warmth and tenderness, English writer-director John Boorman delivers a charming portrayal of childhood and family life in wartime. Without getting too saccharine, the film manages to engage, entertain and even make you laugh.

Jackson Booth-Millard I had missed the opportunity to watch this semi-autobiographical film a few times on television, in 2017 it was celebrating its 30th anniversary, and I was celebrating my 30th birthday, watching it was my to celebrate both occasions, from Oscar, BAFTA and Golden Globe nominated director John Boorman (Point Blank, Deliverance, Exorcist II: The Heretic). Basically it tells the story of the Rohan family: nine-year-old Billy (Sebastian Rice-Edwards), his sisters Sue (Geraldine Muir) and Dawn (Sammi Davis), and his parents Grace (BAFTA nominated Sarah Miles) and Clive (David Hayman), living in a suburb of London. After the broadcast by Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain, announcing the beginning of the Second World War, Clive joins the army, leaving Grace alone to look after the children. The action is seen through the eyes of Billy, the Blitz occurs every night, Billy sees it as the chance for "fireworks, as exciting as they are terrifying, he and his family do not see things in the same way as the bombs continue to drop, the family are brought closer together by their will to survive the nightly raids. Billy learns about sex, death, love, hypocrisy, and the faults of adults, and prowls the ruins of bombed houses on Rosehill Avenue, while his older sister Dawn falls for a Canadian soldier, becomes pregnant, and finds her life turned upside down, but learns the value of family. The family are eventually evacuated, moving to the Thames-side idyllic country home of Grace's parents, Grandfather George (BAFTA nominated Ian Bannen) and Grandma (Annie Leon), Billy's childlike father, who is off chasing patriotic dreams of glory, visits when he can. Billy's mother finds it difficult to cope in these turbulent times, there is an incident where the grandparents' house burns down, not following a raid, an ordinary house fire, but this provides Billy an opportunity to spend more time with his curmudgeonly grandfather. The end of the film sees the family survive the war, the parents and children reunite happily, and Billy is joyful following the end of the Blitz, when Hitler has bombed his school. Also starring Derrick O'Connor as Mac, BAFTA winning Susan Wooldridge as Molly, Jean-Marc Barr as Corporal Bruce Carrey, Jill Baker as Faith, Amelda Brown as Hope, Katrine Boorman as Charity, Charley Boorman as Luftwaffe Pilot and The Man with the Golden Gun's Gerald James as the Headmaster. This is a very clever way to tell stories of war, seen from the perspective of a younger character, not a scary experience, but a chance for adventure, so the film is not all doom and gloom, there are actually well crafted funny and charming moments, in amongst the bombings and battlefield sequences, it really emphasises the importance of family, and the costumes and settings are authentic looking, it is just a surprisingly delightful war drama. It was nominated the Oscars for Best Picture, Best Writing, Screenplay Written Directly for the Screen for John Boorman, Best Cinematography and Best Art Direction-Set Decoration, it was nominated the BAFTA for Best Film, Best Cinematography, Best Costume Design, Best Editing, Best Make Up Artist, Best Original Screenplay, Best Production Design, Best Score for Peter Martin and Best Sound, and it won the Golden Globe for Best Motion Picture - Comedy or Musical, and it was nominated for Best Screenplay. Very good!

James Hitchcock Although British by birth, John Boorman is perhaps best known as a Hollywood director, responsible for, among other things, that fine drama "Deliverance". "Hope and Glory", however, is a quintessentially British film, based on his own childhood experiences of wartime London. The film tells the story of the Rohans, a typical middle-class suburban London family between 1939 and 1942. The family consists of parents Clive and Grace, daughters Dawn and Sue and 10-year-old son Billy, through whose eyes the action is seen.The film does not have a strongly defined plot, but rather tells of how Grace and her children get on with the business of living after Clive goes off to join the army. Dawn falls in love with a Canadian soldier and gets pregnant by him. The family home burns down and they are forced to move in with Grace's parents who live outside London. A theme running throughout is how, in the midst of death and suffering, people manage to find joy in the small pleasures of life. For the teenaged Dawn this means letting her hair down at the local dancehall. For Billy and his friends this means exploring bomb sites to add to their growing collections of German bullets and shrapnel. And, even more importantly for the cricket-mad boy, it means learning how to bowl a googly. For a film about the war, this one contains a surprising amount of comedy.The title, of course, derives from the well-known patriotic song "Land of Hope and Glory". In some ways the film is critical of some of the less attractive aspects of British patriotism, such as Billy's terrifying headmaster calling upon God to rain down destruction on the Germans or his teacher who explains to her class that the war is being waged to keep as much of the world map as possible coloured pink. Yet in other ways Boorman celebrates what might be called the "patriotic myth of the Blitz", the idea that when confronted by hardship and a ruthless enemy the British people reacted with solidarity and stoicism, taking in their stride things which at one time might have seemed like major disasters. Before the war, an unmarried teenaged girl who found herself pregnant might well have been disowned by an outraged family, but Grace and Clive only treat Dawn with love. The family's loss of their home becomes easier to bear because they have already seen several of their neighbours lose theirs. When a German pilot is forced to bail out into the middle of the people he has just been bombing, they gaze at him in curiosity rather than hatred (although they have plenty of reason to hate him) and make no attempt to harm him before he is led away by a policeman.Four acting performances stand out. There is young Sebastian Rice-Edwards who makes Billy a most engaging hero, a rather less scruffy version of Just William. There is Sammi Davis as Dawn, older than her brother and therefore more acutely aware that war is something real and deadly dangerous rather than an exciting adventure; her desperate search for love and pleasure can be attributed to this sudden recognition of her own mortality and to a desire to enjoy life while she can. (Davis seemed to be one of the rising young stars of the British cinema in the late eighties, but little has been heard of her recently). Then there is Sarah Miles, not always my favourite actress but here excellent as Grace, a woman trying to cope with the task of raising her family while her husband is away, and also trying to cope with her own emotions. (We learn that the real love of Grace's life was not Clive but his friend Mac, still a civilian and unexpectedly single after being abandoned by his own wife). And finally there is Ian Bannen as the family's difficult and eccentric old grandfather.The film was nominated for several Academy Awards, including Best Director, Best Picture and Best Writing. It didn't win in any of these categories, but it is a tribute to Boorman's skills as a film-maker that it received so many nominations, because it was not a film particularly calculated to appeal to the American market. It deals with the British war effort during a period when America was still neutral. It deals with the lives of ordinary people rather than a recognisable figure like Churchill. It does not star any big-name American actors; making a character in a British war movie Canadian is normally a device to create a role for a major Hollywood star, but not here. It does not even have any internationally known British stars apart from Miles. And, worst of all, it requires a certain knowledge of cricket, a sport which has about the same following in America that baseball does over here.Despite the Britishness of his subject-matter, however, Boorman was able to make a film which reflects universal values- love, the family, the struggle for survival, determination, humour in the face of adversity. It is the emotional power generated by this combination of the particular and local with the universal which makes "Hope and Glory" one of the best British films of the 1980s, a decade when our national film industry experienced a remarkable revival following its nadir in the 1970s. It is perhaps the best film ever made about the wartime Home Front. 9/10

ma-cortes Autobiographical film by John Boorman who describes enjoyable vignettes about recollections from his boyhood . Seen through the young boy's eyes , WWII originates a playground of memory to collect and wild imaginings brought to life in which a family battling through Nazi planes , Blitz , fire and blow up . It is starred by a nine year old boy called Bill (Sebastian Rice) as he grows up in London during the blitz of World War 2 . For a kid , this time in history was more of an adventure , a total upheaval of order , limitation and rules . As his mother (Sarah Miles) must deal with the awakening of her adolescent daughter (Sammi Davis) keep her children in line , balance food rations and attempt to shelter against bombings on the suburban street . Meanwhile ,Bill and his friends prowl the ruins and debris of bombed houses and when occurs bombings they run to bomb shelter .A flavoursome semi-autobiographical project by the same filmmaker whose recollections come true as seen through the eyes of director John Boorman, who also wrote and produced . There are rollickling portraits of the family members , the bands of young boys are well-drawn and exploring the liberating effect of the war on the women left behind . Interesting and agreeable screenplay , including Boorman's own dialog . It contains a portrait of the lower middle classes battling through suburban semis , good jokes , chuckles and some scene rings horrendously actual , but in other hand other images seem unreal . The highlights of the movie are the joy when a rocket blows up the school and scenes dealing with the gang of boys . It's a fine companion to ¨Forbidden games¨ by Rene Clement , ¨Empire of sun¨ by Steven Spielberg , and ¨Au Revoir Les Enfants¨ by Louis Malle ; all of them dealing with WWII from memories of kiddies . Good British cast who plays with relish as Sarah Miles as the mummy , David Hayman as daddy , Sammi Davis as the feisty daughter , Derrick O'Connor as Mac , Susan Wooldridge as Molly and the French Jean-Marc Barr as the boyfriend . Special mention to Ian Bannen as the grandfather who steals the show as a rogue veteran . Furthermore , Boorman's two children as Katrine and Charly Boorman . Colorful and evocative cinematography by excellent French cameraman Philippe Rousselot . Evocative and stirring musical score by Peter Martin .The motion picture was well directed by John Boorman . He's a real professional filmmaking from the 6os , though sparsely scattered and giving various classics . John started as an assistant direction and his friendship with Lee Marvin allowed him to work in Hollywood as ¨Point Blank¨ (1967) and ¨Hell in the Pacific¨ (1968) from where he returned to the UK and directed ¨Leo¨ (1970) , a rare Sci-Fi titled ¨Zardoz¨ (1974) or the ¨failure Exorcist II¨ (1977). His films are without exception among the most exciting visually in the modern cinema . He became famous for Excalibur (1981), the best of them , ¨Emerald forest¨ (1985) with a ecologist denounce included and his autobiographic story ¨Hope and Glory¨ (1987) and which brought him another Academy Award Nomination after ¨Deliverance¨ . Rating : Better than average . Wholesome watching .