Overrated and overhyped

One of my all time favorites.

As Good As It Gets

It's complicated... I really like the directing, acting and writing but, there are issues with the way it's shot that I just can't deny. As much as I love the storytelling and the fantastic performance but, there are also certain scenes that didn't need to exist.

great cast. interesting script. noble message. touching story of love and honor. for discover it in deep sense it is useful to remember the year of its birth. a film about war from the war period. this little detail could transforms the dialogs and the story in more than pieces from a lost age, pathetic or almost fake, ridiculous or out of our period manner to discover reality. it remains touching for the science to present the soul of a moment in honest manner. for the splendid performance by Charles Laughton, for George Sanders and his character's vulnerability and, sure, for Maureen O'Hara as the strong woman. nothing surprising in each performance but the large picture is touching and convincing. because its subject is the ordinary every day life, its values, sacrifices and metamorphoses. more than a film, a manifesto. or only reminder about what is real important.

One of greatest anti-war films with memorable acting from Charles Laughton , Maureen O'Hara and George Sanders . It's a moving reflexion about war , sacrifice and death . A mild-mannered schoolteacher (Charles Laughton) in a Nazi occupied town during WWII finds himself being torn between collaboration and resistance . He is quite friendly with his fellow teacher , Louise Martin (Maureen O'Hara) and her brother Paul (Kent Smith ) . Meanwhile , at school and street many prohibited books, considered "un-German," were broken or burned in the book-burning pile . Albert is charged with murder but the local Nazi commander, Major Erich Von Keller (Walter Slezak) , offers him a deal . At the end the teacher begins reading to his students "The Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen" (French: Déclaration Des Droits l'Homme Et Du Citoyen), a fundamental document of the French Revolution.This is an excellent classic anti-war movie and deals about sacrifice , collaboration , comradeship , human relations and in which a shy man is drawn into the actions of the resistance . A heart-breaker and elegiac movie in the way it shows war undercutting and qualities of a timid but good teacher . This is a well-paced , deliberate and magnetic drama set in WWII . It is a riveting film dealing with thought-provoking issues , wonderful acting and anti-Nazi denounce . Anyway, the film is very interesting , thematically intriguing and brooding . Time has not diminished its qualities nor its charming to the emotions . Interesting performances enhance an eloquent screenplay by Dudley Nichols . Impressive defense final speech , though propaganda , which is arousing the citizens in court . The film opened simultaneously at 72 theaters in 50 key cities on 7 May 1943, setting a box office record for gross receipts on an opening day. Excellent acting by the great Charles Laughton , giving a remarkable , self-effecting performance as a coward , mild-mannered teacher who is drawn into the actions of the resistance . Very good support cast includes extraordinary actors as George Sanders as George Lambert , Walter Slezak as Major Erich Von Keller , Kent Smith as Paul Martin and special mention to Una O'Connor as mother at a sympathetic though exaggerated interpretation .The film is excellently screen-written and directed by Jean Renoir who approach the intensity and feel of his best works. Son of painter impressionist Auguste Renoir , was perhaps the best of French directors . At its initial French period he directed classics as ¨Boudu saved drowning, Rules of the game, Marseillaise, Day in the country¨ and of course ¨Grand Illusion¨ in which his optimism remains relentless . Renoir was in Hollywood for seven years, where he made ¨Swamp water, Southerner, Diary of chambermaid, This land is mine,and Woman on the beach¨. He returned France where directed other classic films as ¨Carrozza dóro, Testament Dr Cordelier, Picnic on the grass, Vanishing corporal¨ and several others. His films have influenced on Francois Truffaut, Luchino Visconti, Satyajit Ray , among them. Rating : above average, an extraordinary and sensational film.

I found this gem of a movie on television. Charles Laughton was outstanding. He conveyed perfectly the thesis of the film: that Nazism and the New World Order depended on corrupting those they occupied, tempting them with rewards for betraying their fellow countrymen more than even the brutal intimidation we are all familiar with.I was also quite interested to see the collaboration between the big industrialists and the Nazis, who corrupted them by catering to their anti-unionism. The fact that being against unions was a pillar of Nazi ideology has not been well known, but Renoir's film made it crystal clear.All the performances were well above par; Sanders played the self-seeking weasel who has a change of conscience very well, in a very legible, nuanced way. Maureen O'Hara was also excellent, as always.But it was Charles Laughton, standing before the collaborators, Nazis and his own mother as he comes to realize how crucial the Rights of Man are to living decently and honorably, who wins the day.

From what I knew about this film, I wasn't expecting all that much since the critical reception I've read wasn't all that good. However, it is actually a rather good story about the Nazi's invasion of France. A milquetoast teacher (Charles Laughton), dominated by his harridan mother (Una O'Connor), finds he must fight for his principals and beliefs when the Nazis take over his town. He is in love with a fellow school teacher (the beautiful Maureen O'Hara---who wouldn't be?) whose brother (Kent Smith) is doing his best to sabotage the Nazis and ends up being betrayed by O'Hara's fiancée (George Sanders), who secretly supports the Nazis. Laughton is accused of his murder and put on trial. He decides to face his fate with dignity and departs his classroom after making a riveting speech to his students that is pure propaganda but magnificent drama! O'Connor may grate on the nerves at times, but everything she does for the obsessive love for her son is believable. O'Hara as always is a combination of graceful beauty and indestructible feistiness. Sanders makes the most scary civilized villain-the worst kind. He makes a good pair with Nazi Walter Slezak (later the Nazi villain in Hitchcock's "Lifeboat"); To see one clean hand (Sanders) washing the other one (Slezak's) and becoming equally filthy (metaphorically speaking) is very interesting, and makes Sanders' downfall most gratifying.