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| Henry Fonda & Jane Darwell in The Grapes of Wrath (1940) |
Disappearing from the blogosphere certainly made it hard to come back. But recently, I've been peering around this space (lurking, if you will), thinking of the posts that have languished unfinished, and figured, why not dive back in? Lots of life happenings have kept me away (engagement, wedding, and pending new addition), but despite my lack of reviews, our AFI Movie Night tradition continued through the start of April last year, meaning I'm... welp, very behind in sharing my thoughts with you. But that's the rub: I want to share my thoughts. Even a year+ later. So with that, here we go!
Looking back now to #23 on the Top 100 list... like To Kill a Mockingbird, modern readers may have a compulsory reaction to this required-reading-turned-classic-film, be it positive or negative. While Mockingbird may elicit the feel-goods of father/daughter relationships and the fight for justice, The Grapes of Wrath may well make you feel like taking a shower to get all the dust out of your pores.
Adapted from the 1939 John Steinbeck novel of the same name (with heavy involvement from Steinbeck himself), we're quickly introduced to the Joad family, just as eldest son Tom (Henry Fonda) arrives, recently paroled, at their Oklahoma farm. To say that it's seen better days is an understatement. Drought has overrun the community, rocked by Dust Bowl storms and illness, and as the bank seizes the Joad home, there's barely enough time for a hug and hello before the family loads up a truck, tossing the kids & grandparents on the flatbed piled high with chairs and mattresses, to head West seeking a better life.
The journey is long, and they're certainly not alone. The dream of orange groves and lush farms glittering in the California sunlight has enticed many other families and travelers... not to mention, plenty of folks looking to take advantage of their desperation. Even now, imagining the paradise that awaited them (compared to where they'd departed)... I'm overcome with the smell the citrus zest. *sigh* It is through Tom Joad's [less naive] eyes, however, that we witness the excitement, suspicion, and eventual lost hope swirling around the travelers. Tom's experiences, perhaps jading him to the prospect of easy and profitable work (what's the catch?), have taught him that nothing good can come without a good fight.
The book itself can be a tough, albeit fascinating, pill to swallow; what with its propensity for poeticizing the culmination of dust every other chapter... but the beauty of cinema is how much you can say in a moment without any words at all. The desolation, the suffocating hopelessness, none of that is lost on the audience here. No need to belabor the point, the Joads need to get out, and anywhere—even the unknown of the too-good-to-be-true California coast—is better than here. Time to risk life and limb, if that's what it comes to (it does), and director, John Ford, condenses Steinbeck's dense novel into a taut, digestible snapshot of history through the trials of one close-knit family.
Henry Fonda, a man who could be a father or a lover without so much as a shift in facial expression, owns the role of Tom Joad. So much so that it's nearly impossible to imagine anyone else standing in his place. Even the structure of his face—the furrowed brow, high cheekbones, perpetual scruff—installs him as both weathered and idealistic; a man whose humanity is so core to his makeup, it doesn't matter what crimes have littered his past.
Fonda offers the complexity that Tom Joad requires, and it's like he doesn't even have to try. Camera points, shoots, captures, and a protagonist is made. The rest of the cast, while offering strong support, never manage quite manage to pull focus from Fonda, even when they probably should—maybe with the exception of Jane Darwell. As Ma Joad, her earnestness is grounding and she brings such warmth to an otherwise disheartening tale. Fonda needs a counterpart like her, and the story benefits from the pairing.
Apart from the acting, the film's pacing, along with the editing, that create the framework are magnificent. Clear choices were made about what to include, and what to exclude, from the source material, and there is hardly a misstep throughout. The plot is tight, the conflicts are palpable, and the stakes remain high—all without sacrificing character arcs or pivotal events. For me, Wrath is wholly reminiscent, stylistically and in tone, of I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang from 1932 (one of my absolute favorites, why isn't it on this list?!?!), particularly towards the end as Tom Joad comes to terms with what he must do to protect his family. It doesn't hurt that the screenplays share similar climactic lines that root thoroughly among the best in cinema.
On rare occasions, the film suffers from too many soaring oratory moments (which mutes the grit a bit), but it always finds the ground again. I would challenge any viewer to not be affected by the family and their plight; this is such a uniquely American tale, layered with political and economic commentary so attuned to the time, not only of the Great Depression, but of the Great "Okie" Migration that represented a tide of social disparity and injustice. The combination of Ford and Steinbeck was tailor-made to bring this story to the screen.
It's grim and it's troubling, but like the book's mandatory appearance on your high school curriculum, the film should be required American viewing.
Rating: ★★★★ / 5 stars
Check back next time for #22 on the list, Some Like It Hot — hopefully coming soon!