Henry Hobson (Charles Laughton) thinks he's lord and commander of his home - but what he doesn't know is that he only commands what his daughters let him command. Hobson decides to choose husbands for his daughters - because, he says, he can't trust them enough to choose their own dresses. But the girls have different ideas - especially eldest daughter Maggie (Brenda De Banzie, in a wonderful performance), who Hobson denigrates by telling her she's too old at 30 to find a fella - for she calls up talented bootmaker Willy (John Mills) from downstairs and proposes to him.
Director David Lean (Lawrence of Arabia, Brief Encounter) puts his brilliant visual sense to good use in this beautiful little movie. There is plenty of visual material to be admired here. Hobson is a very 1950's man - expecting to be master and patriarch of an increasingly deteriorating family - but the sexual politics here do not make a clown out of the strong-minded female character, Maggie, as they often did in movies of this period of male dominance.
So what may initially sound like antiquated sexual politics (male patriarch fears women will take his control away - when in real life women were putting up no resistance to his dominance), is actually quite as refreshingly original love story. Its not that David Lean thinks that men are in danger of losing their power - the story doesn't feel naive in this way - it targets Hobson as the one with these fears, as the one out of fashion. Willy seems quite happy being subservient to his wife Maggie, and even is greatly appreciative of her raising his station in life.
The social politics are not at all antiquated - England today is still a very stratified society, and would probably still find shocking the idea of a wealthy middle-class person courting and marrying a lower-class manual labourer, let alone a woman being the aggressor in the situation.
Hobson is a despicable character, but he's supposed to be - Maggie is such a strong female character, and Willy such a likeable little fellow, that they make Hobson's Choice quite an enjoyable little movie, with cheeky, sometimes ironic use of music and beautifully framed and photographed.
8/10. A somewhat more original courtship than Brief Encounter.
Note: American viewers will find this inaccessible, b.c they'll find it impossible to decipher the english dialect. I found it quite difficult, but Americans will find it worse.
Director David Lean (Lawrence of Arabia, Brief Encounter) puts his brilliant visual sense to good use in this beautiful little movie. There is plenty of visual material to be admired here. Hobson is a very 1950's man - expecting to be master and patriarch of an increasingly deteriorating family - but the sexual politics here do not make a clown out of the strong-minded female character, Maggie, as they often did in movies of this period of male dominance.
So what may initially sound like antiquated sexual politics (male patriarch fears women will take his control away - when in real life women were putting up no resistance to his dominance), is actually quite as refreshingly original love story. Its not that David Lean thinks that men are in danger of losing their power - the story doesn't feel naive in this way - it targets Hobson as the one with these fears, as the one out of fashion. Willy seems quite happy being subservient to his wife Maggie, and even is greatly appreciative of her raising his station in life.
The social politics are not at all antiquated - England today is still a very stratified society, and would probably still find shocking the idea of a wealthy middle-class person courting and marrying a lower-class manual labourer, let alone a woman being the aggressor in the situation.
Hobson is a despicable character, but he's supposed to be - Maggie is such a strong female character, and Willy such a likeable little fellow, that they make Hobson's Choice quite an enjoyable little movie, with cheeky, sometimes ironic use of music and beautifully framed and photographed.
8/10. A somewhat more original courtship than Brief Encounter.
Note: American viewers will find this inaccessible, b.c they'll find it impossible to decipher the english dialect. I found it quite difficult, but Americans will find it worse.