Mrs. Miniver is a propaganda film, pure and simple. Its prologue reads, “This story of an average English middle-class family begins with the summer of 1939; when the sun shone down on a happy, careless people, who worked and played, reared their children and tended their gardens in that happy, easy-going England that was so soon to be fighting desperately for her way of life and for life itself.” Its epilogue: “AMERICA NEEDS YOUR MONEY BUY DEFENSE BONDS AND STAMPS EVERY PAY DAY.” (Source: IMDb)
The film (directed by William Wyler) introduces us to The Minivers, the aforementioned average middle class family. It tells us that they’re an average middle-class family, but it lies. They’re well above average. In fact, I’d call them rich. They live in a beautiful home and have servants. Their oldest son is away at Oxford, and he woos the granddaughter of the local noblewoman. Mr. Miniver owns a yacht, Mrs. Miniver splashes out on ridiculously expensive hats, and the couple drives a car that’d cost somewhere in the neighborhood of $75,000 today.
Over the course of the film, we see the Minivers overcome adversity, do their duty, spread joy, and generally be happy. When the Blitz wreaks havoc on their cozy village, we in the audience are supposed to feel compelled to buy war bonds to –what? Help these nice rich people keep being nice and rich? To preserve an ideal of an England that never was?
I’m not quite sure, but here’s the kicker: it works. I liked the Minivers. As played by Greer Garson, Mrs. Miniver is a saint – and a pretty one, to boot. Mr. Miniver does his part at Dunkirk and helps to bring the boys home. Young Oxford Miniver, despite his intellectual pretensions, grows into a fine fellow and just the man for the noblewoman’s practical and intelligent granddaughter. I laughed. I cried. I noticed a subplot brazenly plagiarized by ‘Downtown Abbey’ decades later.
So, yes, Mrs. Miniver is a propaganda film. That’s not the point. The point is, it’s a good propaganda film. Now, where can I go to buy some bonds?
