The Grapes of Wrath (1940)

This week our class watched John Ford’s 1940 film titled “The Grapes of Wrath.” I must say, I have a lot of mixed feelings about this film and I’m still not sure if I liked it or not. But, like most films, there were some things I found very enjoyable and other things I really didn’t enjoy much.

To start, I really enjoyed some of the characters as they seemed to bring a comedic, light-hearted feeling to it. I think my favorite character was Grandpa because he was so out there and a bit odd. His odd behaviors were funny and entertaining to watch, and I feel as though his character lifted the spirits of the other family members. I was pretty disappointed when he died so early into their trip to California, and I think his death really affected the family’s trip because they no longer had their funny and crazy grandpa to make them laugh. I also found the character of grandma really entertaining because of her hilarious mannerisms. I believe there were even a few scenes where she didn’t have any dialogue, but would simply stick her tongue out or make a weird noise. To be honest, I think the grandparents were the two most entertaining characters in the film. Without them, I’m pretty sure I would have lost interest in this film much earlier than I did.

After both of the grandparents died, I found it extremely difficult to focus on the film because I just thought it was so boring without those two characters. The story itself wasn’t too bad, but it just seemed to drag on and on. I think I tend to lose interest in movies that are revolved around such depressing themes. I tried really hard to concentrate and look for other things within the film that I liked, but I couldn’t get passed the fact that nothing seemed to go right for this poor family! I mean, there were a few times during the film where I found myself saying, “Really? Come on! Something has to go right for them, right?” During their long journey from Oklahoma to California, both of the grandparents died, they had numerous car troubles, and they were low on food and water for the majority of the trip. Seriously? And just when you think nothing else worse could happen, things somehow get a lot worse once they arrive in California. Connie up and leaves his wife because he couldn’t handle the pressure of not being able to find work and living in different camps, Jim Casy gets killed, and Tom gets in a fight with one of the camp officers which forces the family to sneak out leave that camp the next night. Once I realized things were probably never going to go well for this family, my interest in the film dropped dramatically.

After thinking about it, I don’t think I enjoyed this film very much because it was so depressing. I think I would have been more interested in this film if good things would have happened to the Joad family every now and then. But the fact that almost nothing good happened to the family throughout the movie just made it less enjoyable for me.