World War II is over, so bombardier Fred is discharged from the army and sent back home. During a flight to his hometown, he meets two other veterans and makes friends with them: Sergeant Al and Navy officer Homer who lost both his fists in the war, leaving him with prosthetic hooks on his arms. Back in town, Fred is reunited with his wife, Marie, whom he married hastily during the war, but finds out she is only interested in spending his money and partying. He finds a job selling perfumes in a store. Al is back to his wife, Milly, and their two kids, and is promoted to an official approving loans in a bank. His daughter, Peggy, is in love with Fred. Homer returns to his parents, but is reluctant to marry his fiance, Wilma, fearing she will be confined to only take care of him due to his disability. Fred divorces Marie. Homer and Wilma marry, whereas Fred admits his love for Peggy.
Although very conventional and ordinary drama, "The Best Years of Our Lives" roused a big attention from the critics and the audiences, since it sold 55,000,000 tickets at the American box office, and was awarded with several prizes thanks to its engaging, humanistic concept of following three war veterans trying to return and re-integrate back to their normal lives once the war is over. The movie is not impeccable. Its first hour is overrated, dwelling too often into the melodramatic, sentimental territory that focuses too much on the characters hugging, crying and experiencing the hardships of life, whereas its dialogues and William Wyler's direction are deliberately common, to conjure up the feeling of everyday 'slice-of-life' routine. However, the movie picks up in its second act and starts to gain interest by presenting the untypical, unglamourous, "un-patriotic" and genuine perspective of the three veterans who feel like "fish out of water" in their own hometown in this era. One of them is the character of Fred, who hurriedly married Marie during the war, thinking he might die, anyway, but who survived the war and now has to live with her. He finds out she is a 'gold-digger', a woman who doesn't really love him, but only his money. Fred's humiliation, when he returns to his store, only to find out his job was taken while he was away, and now has to sell perfume to costumers, is palpable and very bitter.
The character of Al is equally as interesting: after getting drunk, he wakes up so confused that he throws his shoes out of the window and takes a shower in his pajamas, whereas he laments to his wife: "Last year it was killing Japs, and this year it's... make money!" His wife even tells their daughter how their marriage was never ideal ("How many times have I told you I hated you and believed it in my heart? How many times have you said you were sick and tired of me; that we were all washed up? How many times have we had to fall in love all over again?"), which mirrors the double theme of the entire film: one is that idealism does not exist, whereas the other is that once these people have served their purpose, they are not important to the society anymore. The most talked about subplot was the one revolving around the disabled veteran Homer: even though the producers probably argued against it, fearing it might be too depressive, Wyler insisted on casting the real-life amputee Harold Russell in the role, achieving a very honest, albeit bitter effect of showing all the limitations, fragility and omissions of physical life. Homer has hooks instead of hands and his problems might be even too realistic for some viewers. This culminates in one of the most emotional sequences in cinema history: he feels that his fiance, Wilma, will feel "trapped" in the marriage due to his burden ("You don't know what it will be like to live with me. Got to face this every day...Every night."), so he invites her to see how he looks like when he undresses when he goes to bed. Homer then takes away his prosthetics and expects her to run away — but she stays and tells him she loves him, anyway. These constructions of the storyline give it a higher level, since they bravely explore the unpleasant side-effects of war, showing how imaginary the notion of a "victory" is when the heroes, once away, now lost their normal lives for good.
Grade:+++
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