Films to Love: Since You Went Away

Christmas time is truly one of my favorite times of year. While I’m not a huge lover of winter time, particularly if rather than snow we just get that horrid mizzely weather that is nothing but cold and grey, I do love the crisp cold that leaves your nose and cheeks a wee bit red when Christmas is impending.

In our home, we revel in all the traditions we’ve established for our family throughout the year. After Thanksgiving, we get down all the decorations from the attic and take stock of what we have. Then we go about doing the decorating. Since we enjoy placing lovely little touches of Christmas throughout the whole house, decorating takes some time. And we enjoy that too. Doing a little each day, we slowly see the house transform into a Winter Wonderland (and with the added boon of not having all the horrid holiday stress, too, as we take our time).

We have a stereo system in our house. No doubt, if you saw it, you’d say it’s ancient, but it still works beautifully and sounds terrific. I stock up the five CD disc changer with our favorite Christmas albums (I’ll do a separate post on those- although I do have some Christmas music posts here and here), I put on a fun Christmas themed TV screensaver from a variety of YouTube channels we enjoy (I’ll do another post on those, too), and we cheerily set putting up all our holiday decorations. (I’ll be honest, it’s mostly cheerful. I detest doing the trees as stringing lights is always an ordeal. ALWAYS. And since we put up four trees throughout the house, it’s a longer torture than I like. So, I do that portion first and enjoy doing the rest having gotten the headache out of the way. Am I the only one that abhors the stringing of the finicky lights?)

Another things we do at this time of year is watch Christmas movies. I’ll be up front on this one; aside from a few exceptions, I do not care for Hallmark movies or, for that matter, a great deal of modern Christmas movies. Not a fan of Elf. Or The Grinch. The Christmas movies we tend toward in our family are classics. (with a few exceptions, as there are to every rule, am I right?).

Today I want to share with you one that we recently watched that not only ended with a beautiful display of the heart of Christmas, but is also a film that resonates in today’s atmosphere.

Filmed and released in 1944, Since You Went Away is based off of the 1943 novel by Margaret Buell Wilder which bares the same name with the sub title Letters to a Soldier from his Wife. It’s a World War II story. However, rather than the war on the front against the Axis powers, this movie tells the story of the war that was waged on the home front.

The movie is told from the prospective of Mrs. Anne Hilton. It starts the day her husband leaves to join the war effort. She returns home to their idyllic house, all the while, composing a letter to her husband. She doesn’t understand why he had to join the war. After all, he’s an older man, established in an industry, with a wife and two teenage daughters. Anne cannot understand what drove her husband to make such a sacrifice and leave the love and safety of his home to endure the rigors and horrors of war.

Since You Went Away is a long one, chronicling a couple of years in the life of the family that is left behind. While they did not endure rapid fire, ambushes, bombs, and death on a daily basis, the fight which they fought valiantly was one of perseverance and fortitude. Rations, Victory gardens, scrap metal drives, blackout drills, and shortages were their battles, and while those sorts of things might not seem like much of a fight, those small sacrifices day in and day out without knowing whether or not tomorrow would bring the death of a loved one or the defeat of the ideals you held so dear amount to a great deal of courage.

This film is the celebration of the indomitable spirit of the American family. What I most appreciate about it are the vignettes that pepper the narrative throughout, those little glimpses of real life encounters that shape a person’s life.

Since You Went Away is not a traditional Christmas movie. As it is a lengthy film, complete with an Overture, Intermission, and Entr’acte, Since You Went Away cannot focus wholly on one season. Rather, we see several season and the troubles and struggles the family endures in each. However, I consider this film a Christmas movie because it does end at Christmastime.

This a worthy watch. Not only is the story uplifting, particularly as so many people today find themselves in trying circumstances, but the performances are exemplary. Claudette Colbert plays the lead masterfully with a cast of heavy hitters, including Joseph Cotton, Shirley Temple, Jennifer Jones, and Monty Wooley.

Christmastime should be a time in which we celebrate family, and this movie does that with aplomb. Since You Went Away reminds us of the steadfast love and unconquerable spirit of Family. That is a worthy reminder during the holidays, perhaps more so this season in the uncommon and challenging year that 2020 has been for so many of us.

I hope, dear readers, that you’ll get a chance to watch this one at some point in the coming weeks. And, I truly hope that when you do, it encourages your heart and uplifts your spirit.