As subjective as it may seem, I cannot avoid making the comment this film was a bit boring. Painful to watch. There's a strain that the narrative builds over the watcher, the pressures of an incredibly tough and depressing series of life events, where a viewer may be left thinking: "well I don't have an issue with dramas or tough films, but why focus on such difficult and common life events ?" It's one of these things about historical movies - a particular event having occurred doesn't necessarily make for a great film plot or story to tell.
The incredibly rough Great Depression years were awful and all, sure, but to make 2 hours plus of film based on the Steinbeck novel... this is like an American Emile Zola, an American Germinal. That monotonous old naturalism/realism narrative of exploring the misery of the working class... why, out of everything else there is to write about or make a film about... You'd ask yourself why an author would focus all his energy on something so bleak and real, there's such a lack of fantasy, the story telling is just totally flat and linear. What, we're barely given 30 seconds of poetry at the end from Fonda and then a speech from the mother in that last scene, but 2hrs10 for that ?...
Good film. Tough to watch. 6.5/10.
The incredibly rough Great Depression years were awful and all, sure, but to make 2 hours plus of film based on the Steinbeck novel... this is like an American Emile Zola, an American Germinal. That monotonous old naturalism/realism narrative of exploring the misery of the working class... why, out of everything else there is to write about or make a film about... You'd ask yourself why an author would focus all his energy on something so bleak and real, there's such a lack of fantasy, the story telling is just totally flat and linear. What, we're barely given 30 seconds of poetry at the end from Fonda and then a speech from the mother in that last scene, but 2hrs10 for that ?...
Good film. Tough to watch. 6.5/10.