GrimPrecise I'll tell you why so serious

SincereFinest disgusting, overrated, pointless

InformationRap This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

Bea Swanson This film is so real. It treats its characters with so much care and sensitivity.

Framescourer A deeply affecting film that quickly outstrips its own agitprop frame to become a robust but romantic drama. David Lean (and Noel Coward) create a sort of middle-aged rite-of-passage domestic epic, in which the world's woes and loves are played out in a Clapham terrace. The large, impressive ensemble is led by the mother in a parental couple moving their family into a home following 1919 demobilisation. Celia Johnson is familiar to many for her subsequent film for Lean, Brief Encounter, yet this is a thoroughly intelligent, coruscating, indeed modern screen performance that dominates foils as fine as Robert Newton's Frank (the husband) or John Mills' carefully graded Billy.Like all effective romances constructed over a time period, we become familiar with the space as well as the people. The characters are well- drawn and maintained but so is the design of the inside of the house. Key to this is the use of the back door and the garden. This is informal gate to discreet domestic life in England between the wars: a refuge from the formal entrance at the street, the garden where men are reunited and family nurtured in fact or in the symbolism of the compulsive watering of plants. It's also where the one tragedy of the film is learnt in a fine single-take tracking shot, rooted in the kitchen but looking out into the garden for the parents to come in and show the way forward. 8/10

ianlouisiana Having patronised the lower classes in general with "In which we serve",Mr Coward and Mr Lean do their penance and treat Londoners with genuine respect and affection with their second joint effort "This Happy Breed". Released a few days before the Invasion of Europe heralded the beginning of the end for Nazi Germany,the film appealed to a nation wearily enduring its sixth year of total war.It emphasised the basic decentness of the ordinary English family,despite all its convoluted dynamics,its temporary estrangements and affiliations and its genuine dramas and tragedies. Determinedly lower middle class Robert Newton and Celia Johnston are strict but loving parents,hard - working,honest,sure of their place in the scheme of things and determined to bring up their children with the same values. Hard though it may be to accept in these more cynical and "aware" times, they were a typical family - certainly not noticeably different from my neighbours in the 1940s. "This happy Breed" tracks 20 years of their history up to the outbreak of the war that was still raging at the time it was released. Their are sublime performances from Mr Newton,Miss Johnson and Mr Holloway but for me Miss Kay Walsh is particularly outstanding as their aspirational daughter Queenie,idolised by boy next door(John Mills - very endearing),but who has bigger fish to fry. Watching it on Filmfour last week was a profoundly affecting experience for me. The wonderful scene where the family learns of the death of their son is done off - screen as the camera lingers on the open garden doors and the bright sunlight outside,jolly music on the wireless a marvellous counterpoint to the mother's tragic scream.A bit special,that. When a slightly chastened Queenie,older but apparently not particularly wiser,returns and marries a delighted John Mills you know she is making the best of a bad job,and I shed a few tears for both of them. Although not perhaps a propaganda picture in its strictest sense,nonetheless "This Happy Breed" will have reassured Britons that their way of life was worth fighting for.

MartinHafer This film is set between the wars and spans roughly 20 years. WWI has just ended when the film begins. The man of the house is back from fighting and the family is moving into a new home. Soon, you start to realize that this 'typical' English family is darned annoying! Now I know this is considered to a very good film and has a very respectable overall score, but listening to the grandmother and aunt prattle on and on and on throughout the film grated on me--and was hoping that someone would toss them out or hit them! And, as the teenagers grew into adulthood, they, too, often became annoying brats. And it made me wonder...was the supposed to be a film to bolster the spirit of the Brits or make you sympathize for the enemy?! After all, aside from the nice but ineffectual mother and father, they were a pack of jerks! And, as the film inexorably moves through the next decades, some of the folks don't improve--the granny and aunt are STILL obnoxious. The idiot kids (especially the one daughter) eventually turn things around...but it sure takes too much of the film! Heck, I could see the Axis using this film to show the German people to persuade them how weak and annoying the Brits were (which they are NOT--but the film sure makes it seem that way).While I KNOW that David Lean is one of the gods in the film world, I really think this one is a huge disappointment due to characters who seem more like broad caricatures instead of real folks and a story that bounces through so many years that you rarely feel connected to the characters. I think that Mr. and Mrs. Gibbons (the parents) were wonderfully written and the idea of a story of the working class on the outbreak of WWII is great--but something is missing from this one. Episodic and tough to believe at times, you don't expect a Lean film (and his first color one to boot) to be this mediocre.

Robert D. Ruplenas I tuned in to this one on Turner Classic Movies out of curiosity - the play is by Noel Coward, and this is the first movie David Lean directed. In addition I was drawn by the cast; there are some wonderful British actors and actresses here - Robert Newton, Celia Johnson, Stanley Holloway, a very young John Mills, and Kay Walsh, among others. As the story is basically a "slice of life" tale about a typical British middle-class family between the two world wars, I was prepared to be slightly bored. Imagine my surprise as the movie drew me in with its carefully delineated characters, witty and perceptive dialogue, and its well-drawn portrait of inter-war British life. In addition, the film fulfills the highest expectation one can have of a great movie - it makes you truly care about the characters portrayed. I suppose I should not have expected less, with two such gargantuan creative talents as Noel Coward and David Lean involved, but none the less it was a wonderful treat. Highly recommended to devotees of British film, Coward fans, those interested in British history, or anyone at all that appreciated great film-making.