Smilin' Through

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David K My problem is always anything that Norma Shearer stars in. Although a slightly more interesting actor than Marion Davies (both compared here because of their involvement and/or marriage to highly influential men), her tendency to try to pull every ounce of melodramatic energy never works for me. But, the story is actually pretty good beyond that. Far-fetched, but good. Rated 2.5/5 Stars •  Rated 2.5 out of 5 stars 05/30/25 Full Review ChrisCSH H Smiling through is a beautiful film in every way through each scene and the overall story. The movie is strengthened by its leads. Norma Shearer, Leslie Howard and Fredric March. The story is overall slow at start, but soon the rest of the film is romantically beautiful in every way, a true love story. Rated 4/5 Stars •  Rated 4 out of 5 stars 02/21/25 Full Review Audience Member The film is very effective at a number of things. It mixes pastoral setting with ghostly atmosphere, Moonyeen makes several appearances as a specter as well as intergenerational tale of loves lost and found give it a gentle edge. The plot is not very good. All the characters discuss is platitudes of how much they love each other. The Gothic trappings of the film's war torn and revenge encrusted fantasies are laid to rest with those same simple platitudes. While it may be a sweet, playful love letter to the mystical powers of lost loves, in the end it's just a lavish nothing. Rated 3/5 Stars •  Rated 3 out of 5 stars 02/08/23 Full Review steve d None of it worked for me. Rated 2/5 Stars •  Rated 2 out of 5 stars 03/30/23 Full Review Audience Member The fantasy genre was only really beginning to permeate films in the early 1930s with The Wizard of Oz (1939) and Portrait of Jennie (1948) still yet to come but this was one of the early financial successes as it blended romantic drama with a tale of ghosts haunting a man to great effect. 87 years later the film is not gripping stuff as it moves along at a slow pace and never builds up a sense of urgency about anything even as plot developments that should be highly dramatic occur. I wanted to like the film more than I did and while it was not a difficult 98 minutes to plow through I did find myself bored more often than not and that was simply not enough when considering the pleasures provided by the similarly light and fluffy Little Women (1933). On the wedding day of the beautiful Moonyeen Clare, Norma Shearer, and her longtime love John Carteret, Leslie Howard, she is murdered by her jealous ex-lover Jeremy Wayne, Fredric March. For the rest of his life Carteret continues to mourn her as he raises his niece Kathleen, Norma Shearer, as an older man. Kathleen has been in a relationship with the dull Willie, Ralph Forbes, but during a storm the two take shelter in Wayne's house and encounter his American son Kenneth, Fredric March. Kenneth and Kathleen fall in love but when Carteret reveals dark family secrets she tells him that they cannot see one another anymore and both are left distraught. They reconcile in secret before he heads off to fight in World War I and she spends her time worrying while his life is put at risk overseas. When he returns the two tell Carteret that they intend to stay together and he comes to terms with the fact that he can no longer control them. Where my heartstrings should have been tugged was in the impossible love that Carteret nurses for his dead bride as he wallows in his grief and holds onto a brief moment of happiness he experienced in his life. Almost all people can relate to the feeling of grief and just wanting to talk to a person you loved one more time but having that literally represented in the form of a ghost version of Clare providing closure for Carteret pushed the idea a little too far for me. There is something simultaneously beautiful and problematic about a person remaining devoted to a person even after their death, if you believe as I do that there is no afterlife, as they are gone and will be forever irretrievable. If we were not human and did not feel illogical emotions we would not limit ourselves as we do in feeling grief for a person but it is that very silly, frivolous emotion that makes love such a wonderful feeling and what allows us to feel so close to a person that it is devastating to lose them. This film captured little of that emotion as it seemed more concerned with the special effects required to show Clare as a ghost than writing convincing dialogue for Shearer to spout. The love between the members of the younger generation was sweeter and more capable of taking it's time to develop but there was the feeling that each of the characters were too innocent and childlike for how old Shearer and March appeared. They spoke in the style of Romeo and Juliet but while those characters are young teenagers these two appear as at best 25 with the drinking and smoking they presumably engaged in in real life hurting their looks. Shearer does her best as she tosses her head back frequently and lets out breathy squeaks but March feels older than her and so when he delivers line so direct and earnest it feels odd to hear them coming out of the mouth of a man who seems wise and experienced. You want more out of these characters in what we see of them together as young love is beautiful in it's innocence and how all consuming it can feel but it chooses to rest purely on the attractiveness of it's stars. Few will be particularly pleased by this unambitious little film that was acclaimed at the time but has faded from the public consciousness for good reason. Rated 2.5/5 Stars •  Rated 2.5 out of 5 stars 02/01/23 Full Review Audience Member The best romance movie ever made! Rated 5/5 Stars •  Rated 5 out of 5 stars 02/26/23 Full Review Read all reviews

Smilin' Through

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