Though a relatively gentle homefront comedy, John Boorman’s 1987 Hope and Glory

By Brian Miller • March 2, 2015 4:48 pm
Turner's Bill merits stern disapproval from his C.O. (Grant, at right).Sophie Mutevelian/BBC Worldwide
Turner's Bill merits stern disapproval from his C.O. (Grant, at right).Sophie Mutevelian/BBC Worldwide

Though a relatively gentle homefront comedy, John Boorman’s 1987 Hope and Glory advanced the revisionist argument that—to uncomprehending children, at least—World War II was like a huge thrilling holiday. His sequel, set in 1952, again follows the Rohan family, whose only son Bill (bland, smiling Callum Turner) is again Boorman’s stand-in in this autobiographically inspired account. It’s a pleasant, nostalgic movie that didn’t need to be made (a memoir written, maybe), chiefly because he has nothing new to say about the postwar era. If WWII was, in childish Bill’s eyes, fun, the Cold War is here a fairly bland affair. There’s talk of fighting in Korea, dropping the A-Bomb, and even catching venereal diseases in the brothels of Seoul, but the movie barely leaves the barracks where conscripted Bill and his pal Percy (Caleb Landry Jones) are teaching soldiers to type.

These two discontented NCOs are confronted with an inflexible old-guard military (represented by David Thewlis and Brian F. O’Byrne) that refuses to acknowledge how the world is changing. Snatches of Sinatra and other American jukebox voices are heard; a new television set shows the coronation of Queen Elizabeth; but no one knows, apart from Boorman, how swiftly the sun is setting on the British Empire. Bill, certainly, is oblivious: He’s only intent on an unobtainable dream girl (a trite device in American Graffiti and also here). Percy, the rebel, meanwhile tweaks the ancien regime by stealing the regimental dining-hall clock (even less interesting than it sounds). And leave it to old pro Richard E. Grant, as the eye-rolling base commander, to signal how little any of this will matter in the following decade (when Withnail & I, also released in 1987, is set with a different memory tinge).

Boorman has made fine films including Point Blank, Deliverance, and The General. Hope and Glory struck a chord because of its warm, well-remembered details of everyday heroism (and weakness) beneath the Blitz. That patriotic glow is just beginning to wear off in Queen and Country, as noted by one of Bill’s superiors, who snaps at him in disgust, “This country is fucked.” Bill corrects him: “Your country,” even though Boorman shows us too much of the old England, not enough of the new.

bmiller@seattleweekly.com

QUEEN AND COUNTRY Opens Fri., March 6 at Sundance Cinemas. Not rated. 115 minutes.