Adapted from the Mrs. Miniver newspaper columns by Jan Struther
Mrs. Miniver is a fairly typical British housewife and mother in the late 1930s, but her life is interrupted by the beginning of World War II.
This is the third time I've blogged about this movie, as it won Best Picture and Greer Garson won Best Actress for playing the title role. However, I was not at all familiar with the original story, so I was intrigued to learn it had been based on newspaper columns. These columns were compiled into a book that was apparently very popular in the U.S., to the extent that it has been credited with contributing to America's decision to enter the war. The movie, too, apparently contributed to the war effort, although apart from character names and similar underlying themes, the two really have very little in common.
The columns are a series of vignettes from Mrs. Miniver's life. They're mostly very introspective, and while well-written and thought-provoking, there's not a lot of action. Indeterminate periods of time pass between consecutive stories, and they don't necessarily have much to do with each other. Despite their rich characters and profound ideas, they don't really provide the necessary ingredients for a compelling film. Furthermore, when Jan Struther started writing them, the war hadn't started yet, and it wasn't clear whether one would, and if so, whether England would be involved. The unrest is mentioned, certainly, but it's not the main focus for most of the stories.
By the time the film was made, however, the war was well on its way, and so necessarily became the main focus of the story. The film made the oldest Miniver child, Vin, significantly older so that he could join the air force (and get married). Beyond the war and the Minivers, the movie's story also focuses on several secondary characters who were not present in the column. The newspaper version of Mrs. Miniver had several other people in her life, but most of them were only mentioned in one or two stories, whereas the film's characters feature throughout; again, tying everything together in a way the original stories do not. The movie also made the Minivers somewhat less wealthy than they were implied to be in the columns, perhaps to make them more relatable to a predominantly middle class American audience. Hence the movie shows fewer servants, no frivolous vacations, and worries about spending too much money that were certainly never expressed in the original.
It's not clear whether the columns continued after the book was published. If so, that could explain where the screenwriters got some of their material. Either way, I enjoyed both the book and the film, despite their many discrepancies. Each version works for its given medium, so I wouldn't call one better than the other. Though the stories are very different, they both share the same core: a woman and her family enduring through a rapidly changing world.
Next up, another Best Picture Winner: Casablanca, based on the play Everybody Comes to Rick's by Murray Burnett and Joan Alison
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