This is a very capable and competent film with a wonderful cast and direction. Greer Garson is absolutely captivating as the title character and it was probably her best film--so it's not surprising she received an Oscar for her performance. The movie also made many nice supporting performances and was just lovely to watch. The problem, though, is this little film was elevated to greatness by WWII and received an Oscar for Best Picture that it probably did not deserve, though I must admit that the 1943 award nominees weren't very distinguished compared to other years just before this. If the movie had been made either before of a few years after the war, it probably would never have received the Oscar for Best Picture. It probably won because of the times--it came out in 1942 (just after the USA joined the war) and it was a very effective piece of propaganda--and very good propaganda at that. So in essence, a vote for this picture was like a vote for the war effort. I assume that viewers in 1942 were captivated by the movie and based on sentiment at the time, it may have been the odds on favorite to win. It's just that taken from this context the film just doesn't hold up as well and seems, on occasion, a little heavy-handed. Still a decent film but a disappointment to many who will be expecting more.

Mrs Miniver may not be a "flawless" film(then again few films are),character development is somewhat sketchy- though you still care a great deal for the characters- and some of the accents don't convince with Teresa Wright trying too hard and Walter Pidgeon not seeming to attempt one. But when everything else and the film on the whole is as superb as it is they can be seen as trivial and can be easily be overlooked. Mrs Miniver mayn't connect for some by today's standards as much as the other Best Picture nominees that year(Yankee Doodle Dandy for instance still has a lot of appeal) but it's the most important one especially thematically and it certainly connected with me. It won 6 Oscars and was nominated for another 6, all richly deserved, though if more than one winner was allowed in a category May Witty deserved to win her Supporting Actress Oscar. It's a beautiful-looking film with some very hauntingly deliberate shots, and there is a very good soundtrack complete with a sensitive yet sweeping music score and a great use of period favourites. The special effects are great for their time and stand up well today too, while the sound effects have a harrowing effect, the explosions and such almost deafening, how turbulent this particular period was in history is believably done. Mrs Miniver also has a thoughtful script that has emotion and tension(often done subtly, like in the body language),and a story that has a message and theme that still resonates- if perhaps not as relevant- and despite it being a melodrama never feels overwrought. The whole film is genuinely powerful and touching and is helped by the remarkably nuanced pacing, just see what is done with the scene when the husband is seen off to war by his wife. William Wyler directed several great films, a lot of them as much as masterpieces or as close as, and his direction here is tight while alive to nuances. And the acting is one of the film's best assets, with the beautiful Greer Garson outstanding in perhaps a career-best performance, Teresa Wright luminous and like a bright light in a dire situation, May Witty does imperious brilliantly, Walter Pidgeon's understated performance is among his best and Henry Travers is really charming. All in all, Mrs Miniver may not be as such a flawless film but it is a superb one that was worthy of its Best Picture win and is much more than a propaganda piece. 9.5/10 Bethany Cox

With the help of the extensive British colony in Hollywood, William Wyler directed at MGM the best World War II propaganda film to come out of our film industry. Mrs. Miniver won a host of Oscars including Best Picture, Best Actress for Greer Garson, Best Supporting Actress for Teresa Wright, Best Director for William Wyler, all deserved.

Forget all the war pictures, this film about the trials of a British family just before and during World War II struck a poignant note with the American public. Showing how they were coping with the attacks on their civilian population made every American family identify with the Minivers. If they fail in their resolution to defend their blessed isle, we in America could be facing these same trials and depredations.

Like the people in The Diary of Anne Frank, the Minivers are such ordinary folks, caught up in a thing that was not of their making. The film opens with Greer Garson coming home after a shopping trip to London deciding how to tell her husband Walter Pidgeon about a new hat. On the way home, the stationmaster Henry Travers asks Garson permission to name a rose he's been cultivating for the flower show the Miniver Rose. Pidgeon's splurged on a new car and he's trying to figure out how to tell Garson.

The war comes and the Minivers and all their neighbors in their small country town have to deal with rationing and shortages and then the blitz as the ruling malignancy in Germany seeks to terrorize the British people into submission. As London took it as their Prime Minister said it would, so to do the small villages and hamlets, especially if they're located next to an RAF base.

Which is where their oldest boy, Richard Ney, is now stationed after having left Oxford. He's involved too, with a radiantly beautiful Teresa Wright as the granddaughter of the local grande dame, Dame May Witty.

Wright is involved in two of my favorite scenes. When she first meets the pretentious Ney and gently but firmly puts him down, who could help but fall for this girl. And her final scene with Greer Garson is what I'm convinced got them both Oscars. You have to see it, I can't say more and the hardest of hearts will be moved.

Pidgeon's moment comes when he's called away because he owns a small boat, a cabin cruiser we'd call it and ordered to take it to Ramsbottom. It's the beginning of the greatest citizen mobilization of the last century, the evacuation of the British Army from the beach at Dunkirk. He and thousands like him are told what the mission is and they could expect to be under fire at that beach and crossing 40 miles of English Channel. No one flinches and a very nice animated scene at night is showing all of these small crafts filling up the river on a date with history.

Garson also comes face to face with Nazism herself as she first is held captive and then turns the tables on a wounded Nazi flier who bailed out played by Helmut Dantine. Don't think all the women in America didn't think about coming face to face with evil right in their kitchens.

Both Walter Pidgeon for Best Actor and Henry Travers for Best Supporting Actor got nominations themselves, but lost to James Cagney and Van Heflin respectively. In addition Dame May Witty was also up for Best Supporting Actress, but lost to her fellow cast member Teresa Wright.

The valedictory for the film is delivered by Vicar Henry Wilcoxon after a bad raid in which several cast members are killed. With so much death and destruction waged on them at home, it has become the people's war, more a people's war than it was even in the United States with so many civilian casualties. We got a taste of it at Pearl Harbor and a much bigger taste on 9/11 in New York, Northern Virginia, and on the Pennsylvania countryside. The words of Henry Wilcoxon should be standard reading or viewing. It's what makes Mrs. Miniver such a timeless classic as we deal with another brand of totalitarian malignancy in this century.