Cavalcade

Watching Cavalcade (which one is likely only doing to fulfill a Best Picture run), one will get the feeling they've seen it before. Odds are, they have. Though its release precedes the movies that bring about that sense of deja vu, it is almost guaranteed that a person has seen Forrest Gump and Mrs. Miniver long before they ever stumble upon Cavalcade, which feels like an early prototype of a mixture of the two, and does both signature aspects of it far, far worse. Like Mrs. Miniver, Cavalcade eschews a story for following the lives of a family over a period of time, mostly seen through the matriarch's eyes. Unlike Mrs. Miniver which restricts itself to a year or so of World War II, Cavalcade shoots for the moon, covering over thirty years, from New Year's Eve 1899 to New Year's Day 1933. That huge span of time is where the Forrest Gump-ian aspects come in, as the movie marches through a bunch of historical events, not just a year; the Second Boer War, the death of Queen Victoria, the Titanic, and World War I are all referenced here. And I do emphasize that word "referenced", because here is where Cavalcade absolutely does itself no favors and pales in comparison to the other two movies. Forrest Gump's trip through mid-20th century Americna history may be flippant and seen through rose-colored glasses, but I will give it credit for actually engaging with those moments in time. When Bubba dies in Vietnam, there is some genuine weight behind it that sells how pointless and unfortunate the war was. Cavalcade can't even attempt that. When Queen Victoria dies, Cavalcade makes no attempt to establish a link between the event and its characters; it mentions the event, has the characters dress in black for her funeral procession, and point out how the patriarch of the family (who has been in the military) is towards the head of the procession. World War I is glosses over in a two minute montage of troops marching, soldiers "dying" like kids in a third grade play might, and the years of the war being counted off like a page-a-day calendar. The sinking of the Titanic is referred to so glibly, it somehow manages to inspire both laughter and a sense of offense. It's been over a century, but you might actually be inclined to say "too soon!" with how Cavalcade handles it. And again, there is very little correlation or causation established between the historical events and the subjects of the film. Oh, things happen that do impact the family, but Cavalcade will be damned before it shows you. One son dies in the sinking of the Titanic; he is mentioned in the rest of the movie once, in passing, during the WWI segment, to say that if he were alive, he'd no doubt join the military too. We never see the family grieve. We never see a funeral. He is Chuck Cunningham'ed, written off unceremoniously and mercilessly, neither his presence nor his absence of value to the relentless march through time. Mrs. Miniver may have been all lucky breaks until the final fifteen minutes or so, but it at least gave you the sense of the bad times having impact in the moment, culminating in the misery parade at the end. Cavalcade literally ends with the husband and wife, thirty years older, their two sons long dead, and their attitude is "well, we sure have had a life, haven't we?". I don't expect them to be morose, but could there have been some sign, anything at all, that the past thirty years have made any measurable impact whatsoever? It comes off as glib and disingenuous. If I was approaching my later years having buried all my children years before, and I'm sitting there reflecting on the passage of time, I'm certainly not going to be all golly-gee-whillickers about it. And, as a viewer to the movie's events, it makes me ask that fundamental question so many movies seem to be made without thinking about: if the characters can't be chuffed to care, why the hell should I? Cavalcade's flip-book-of-history and how it "affects" one family approach may have been fascinating in 1933, but it is a hollow, bloodless movie that goes out of its way to avoid friction. Nothing that happens matters in the long run, it simultaneously treats history like important mile markers but gives them the weight of a feather, it runs away screaming from any discussion of emotional impact, and it seems to think every character should be the same dry, stiff-upper-lip British stereotype. It has no story to speak of, just a series of historical lilypads it jumps to and from, neither landed on nor left behind with any reverence or inspection beyond having enough structural integrity to keep that segment of the movie afloat. It develops a terrible, predictable pattern of something nice happening followed by an immediate and almost comically ironic twist of bad luck. And worst of all, it's just BORING. The acting is boring, the direction is boring, the script is boring, the dialogue is boring, everything about it is boring. Mrs. Miniver and Forrest Gump may be flawed movies, but they at least feel alive. They have a gravity to them. Cavalcade is a vacuum of such things.