The Best Years of Our Lives

I am always extremely cautious about using this term, but The Best Years of Our Lives may well be a masterpiece. It doesn’t necessarily do everything to the most astounding level but it does so much so consistently well across its long run time and complicated subject matter that I found it hard to do anything but enjoy myself. It doesn’t feel at all its two hour and fifty minute run time, which is always indicative of either excellent pacing, gripping storytelling, or both. I can readily admit that some may find its happier ending a bit saccharine and Hollywood. If the movie had been made in the 1970s it is easy to imagine a more “real” look at the lives of veterans post-war with a lot more brooding self destruction and suicide. Still, I can’t help but feel that there is something to be said for both existing: movies that provide hope for reintegration through community and understanding, as well as movies that open a naive public’s eyes to the tough road many veterans find themselves on… one that often ends in alcoholism, homelessness, and death.

One of the cleverest things that The Best Years does is in its initial conceit. The movie sets us up with three very different veterans of World War II. One is ex-navy, one army, one air force. One is a grunt, one a low level officer, one a ranking officer. One was rich before the war, one suburban middle class, one dirt poor. These also cross over in interesting ways. The ranking officer comes from the poorest background. The navy guy, despite being the youngest and most junior in rank, saw comparatively little combat yet suffered the greatest losses. The best thing is, through the movie’s use of delayed plane flights as a device, the meeting of these three disparate people from the same hometown never feels forced or contrived, even when it secretly is. The fact that they become fast friends over their shared experiences in the war, even though they never served together and barely even served in the same theaters of combat, feels totally real while also creating an absolute goldmine of comparing and contrasting story beats as each deals with their own problems with reintegrating into society now that the war is over.

All three stories have their merits. The banker struggles with self-medicating through alcohol and resuming his job at a bank whose value system no longer matches with his own. The young naval officer lost his hands and struggles to cope not with his injury but the way he feels it causes others to act around him, some of it real and some of it imagined. The ex-soda jerk turned officer suffers from PTSD and has a marriage rocketing towards divorce. Of the three, I found the ex-soda jerk’s story the most interesting.

Of particular note is its handling of PTSD. There is something refreshing about the older Hollywood approach to this issue. In a modern movie, the character’s nightmarish flashbacks would have necessitated a cutaway to a dream-like montage of the horrors he was remembering in all, or at least most, of their gory detail. Here, however, we only see him toss and turn in a cold sweat, talking in his sleep, leaving us to use the theater of the mind to reproduce what horrors he must have experienced. This is wildly effective for the same reason good horror movies will often try to delay showing their monster: the unseen threat is scarier than the visible one. While the biggest of these moments is maybe more than a tad overacted by modern standards, it detracts less from the moment of anguish than you might think.

Perhaps the best part of this three story structure is not just how they offer different perspectives on the challenges of a post-war America, but in the ways in which the stories keep intersecting with one another due to their fast friendship. When the navy boy needs advice on relationships, he seeks out the air force officer for a drink and a chat. When the air force officer needs a place to stay while he finds his wayward wife, he stays with the banker. This helps make all three stories feel connected. This isn’t like Traffic, where the stories barely overlap at all, or Amores Perros, where the stories intersect but barely influence each other, here the characters are very much in each others lives and while many of their struggles are still private, that connectedness keeps the movie feeling like a cohesive whole.

In some ways, The Best Years of Our Lives’ quality is a “greater than the sum of its parts” situation. The acting is all around solid but nothing that really blew me away. The cinematography was plain but effective. While there is the occasional beautifully composed shot, no one would describe this movie as every frame a painting. The script is clever and its story engrossing, but not so bulletproof as to be considered the lone driver of the film’s quality. Rather, the seamlessness with which all these things work together, without the need for anything to stand out, creates something that can be both a thoughtful piece on a meaningful and complex issue, namely reintegration of veterans into society, and a joy to watch.

Would Recommend: If you are looking for a more life affirming look at veteran reintegration than you might find in, say, First Blood.

Would Not Recommend: If you are in the mood for a quick, light popcorn movie.