Review of The Green Years

An episodic and, dare I say, kinda boring movie about a young boy growing up in a Scottish town. Everything that you might think would happen in a movie like this happens. He wants to do one thing with his life but his parents want him to do another. He's in love with a childhood friend but it takes them forever to just admit they're in love with each other. He doesn't have the money to pursue his ambitions until, through a twist of circumstances, he does. All the time he absorbs the life lessons of his irascible great grandfather, played by Charles Coburn in an unacceptable beard and haircut. It's a warm, gentle, unoffensive, slightly drab and boring movie that's typical of a lot of movies that came out around WWII and shortly after, seemingly made for an audience with PTSD.

Coburn received an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actor, and the extremely unlucky George Folsey received his eighth of fourteen unsuccessful nominations for his black and white cinematography.

Grade: B-