In all good love stories, two people meet for the first time, and there's something there. Exactly what that "something" is, nobody can say. A spark, a special chemistry
most likely (and perhaps least romantically) it is our subconscious recollection of the author's dramatic obligation – this man and this woman must fall in love. 'Perfect Strangers (1945)' {released in the US as "Vacation from Marriage"} is unusual in that its star-crossed lovers have not only met before, but have been married for years. Robert (Robert Donat) and Catherine (Deborah Kerr) are a meek British couple who are separated for three years by WWII, each partner taking a role in active combat. When the pair finally reunite, both have changed so tremendously that they find themselves unwilling to return to their mundane former lives.
Robert is a shy and submissive accountant. Just as his job requires perfect balance and order, so too does his life depend on the routine exactness of habit and ritual. In the early part of the film, his behaviour is directed by a stream-of-consciousness voice-over, which maps out conversations in advance, with little avail. Catherine, beset by a perpetual sniffle, is a tired and delicate young thing, the sort of wife that Robert aptly describes as "dependable." At the onset of the War, both join the Navy, and become completely different people as a result. This positive depiction of War – as a great big adventure, more than anything else – was typical during the early 1940s, and 'Perfect Strangers' doesn't, in this regard, add much to Carol Reed's 'The Way Ahead (1944).' Instead, that both Robert and Catherine become changed people is accepted as a given.
Robert Donat's casting in the film was quite deliberate. At the film's beginning, he sports a moustache that obviously references his shy, reliable teacher in 'Goodbye, Mr. Chips (1939).' During the War, he loses the moustache, and the transformation in his screen persona is dramatic: he's suddenly the handsome war hero of so many Hollywood action pictures. Deborah Kerr, too, attains a youthful sexual vitality that sees her transformed from a meek, "dependable" housewife to a veritable "pin-up girl." Even though their transformations have run parallel to each other, there is an undeniable rift present; one skillful match-cut sees Robert and Catherine dancing, but in the arms of other partners. There's a moment in the film, when the troubled couple glimpse each other in the light for the first time in three years, and there's a spark. Just like they've never met.
Robert is a shy and submissive accountant. Just as his job requires perfect balance and order, so too does his life depend on the routine exactness of habit and ritual. In the early part of the film, his behaviour is directed by a stream-of-consciousness voice-over, which maps out conversations in advance, with little avail. Catherine, beset by a perpetual sniffle, is a tired and delicate young thing, the sort of wife that Robert aptly describes as "dependable." At the onset of the War, both join the Navy, and become completely different people as a result. This positive depiction of War – as a great big adventure, more than anything else – was typical during the early 1940s, and 'Perfect Strangers' doesn't, in this regard, add much to Carol Reed's 'The Way Ahead (1944).' Instead, that both Robert and Catherine become changed people is accepted as a given.
Robert Donat's casting in the film was quite deliberate. At the film's beginning, he sports a moustache that obviously references his shy, reliable teacher in 'Goodbye, Mr. Chips (1939).' During the War, he loses the moustache, and the transformation in his screen persona is dramatic: he's suddenly the handsome war hero of so many Hollywood action pictures. Deborah Kerr, too, attains a youthful sexual vitality that sees her transformed from a meek, "dependable" housewife to a veritable "pin-up girl." Even though their transformations have run parallel to each other, there is an undeniable rift present; one skillful match-cut sees Robert and Catherine dancing, but in the arms of other partners. There's a moment in the film, when the troubled couple glimpse each other in the light for the first time in three years, and there's a spark. Just like they've never met.