The Road to Happiness Director Robert Wise made a heavy movie. After all, although the action takes place in New Zealand, it refers to the years of the Second World War, where soldiers are sent to fight fascism from this country, remote from the rest of the world, which means that the plot is not without human losses.
At the same time, the real picture is bright, gentle. Otherwise, it seems, and it can not be, after all, “in the focus” of the attention of its authors are women, four sisters Leslie – Barbara, Anne, Delia and Evelyn, creatures internally finely organized, of course, dreaming of happiness.
It is not difficult to guess that not everyone (like, say, Delia) will wait for him to the fullest extent, and those who succeed, the road to finding heart harmony will be difficult, full of strong shocks and doubts, overcoming personal prejudices, abandoning seemingly unshakable principles to a certain point. And also inevitable disappointments, naturally giving way to hope.
All this organically, with some noble restraint and dignity pass Jeanne Simmons (Barbara), Joanne Fontaine (Anne), Piper Laurie (Delia) also makes a tragic “note” in the narrative, and Sandra Dee, delicately emphasizes the romantic spirit of the soul in the nature of young Evelyn.
At a high level are here and Charles Drake and Paul Newman. They play captains of the American army, respectively Richard Bates and Jack Harding, meetings with whom become fateful for Anne-Fontaine and Barbara performed by Simmons, who, by the way, is generally a kind of emotional tuning fork for the whole film, unable to leave indifferent even the most skeptical viewer.