Perfect Strangers aka Vacation from Marriage (1945)

(On Cable TV, March 2022) If you’re going to talk about 1945 British romantic dramas, it’s almost mandatory to pit David Lean’s Brief Encounter against Alexander Korda’s Perfect Strangers, and the mat-up is more provocative than simply matching up date sand genres:  While Lean’s film is about two strangers having a passionate but doomed affair, this one is about a married couple rediscovering themselves after a long period apart. Needless to say, I like the upbeat Perfect Strangers a lot more than the dour Brief Encounter. In this film, we spend time with a dull married couple that is broken apart by World War II and reunites three years later, confronting their growth during that time and wondering if they are still good matches for each other. It’s not a bad premise, and it does help to have such likable actors as Robert Donat and Deborah Kerr in the lead roles. The film’s symbolism isn’t particularly subtle (in keeping with Korda’s propagandist specialty), but there’s a pleasant uplifting trajectory to the film’s romantic arc that makes it compelling: who doesn’t enjoy watching two likable characters fall in love with each other for a second time? A further attraction is that the film does offer a glimpse (exaggerated, but still) at a real issue that did face married couples reuniting after years of character-changing military service for at least one of them, including the destruction of their physical surroundings. I won’t try to overhype Perfect Strangers—it’s not that exciting, and its laborious development makes it 93-minute duration feel a bit longer. But it’s rather sweet in the aftermath of a traumatic experience, and that makes quite a difference.