An average movie

I wasn’t really sure what to expect from this flick but since it seemed to have a decent reputation (it is included in the ‘The Best 1,000 Movies Ever Made’ list selected by the New York Times, among other things), I thought I might as well check it out. Well, the damned thing definitely had some potential. Indeed, it was much more intriguing than the quaint movies from the 40’s I have seen recently, I really liked the social angle and the first act and the third act worked fine. Unfortunately, they took a rather weird left turn during the mid-section though. Indeed, even though the movie seemed to be about the struggles of some coal miners in England, for some reason, they instead seemingly dropped them and focused on Davey Fenwick going to university and ending up in some weird and above all really underwhelming love triangle. Seriously, even though I have to admit that Jenny did look lovely, it was so obvious that she was a terrible match for Davey and the fact that he didn’t pick up on that before dropping out of college, getting married with her, basically giving up all his dreams in the process, well, it made the guy look so naïve. Sure, you could argue that it made the character flawed and therefore more interesting but, as far as I was concerned, I thought he was actually rather pathetic. But, above all, what the hell did it have to do with these coal miners? It’s too bad because the rest of the movie was actually pretty good as it was a really solid and convincing vintage depiction of social struggle in the UK. Anyway, to conclude, in spite of its flaws, it was still a decent watch though and I think it is worth a look, especially if you like the genre.