Anna Friel stars in classy wartime drama The War Bride. She plays Lily, an orphan who suddenly finds herself married, with child and living with hostile in-laws in the wilds of Canada. Thematically similar to Friel's Land Girls, this is a much more accomplished affair. Her star turn is well complimented by Brenda Fricker and Molly Parker as her agitated in- laws.
In what could have been a very pedestrian story, timing is key. Director Lyndon Chubbuck handles this carefully, leaving it until wartime London has become familiar to whip us away to Canada and then leaving it until Lily is finally at home to rock the boat again. To guide us through this we are offered no easy timescale; no regular radio broadcasts counting down the end of the war, no montage of letters to mark the time Lily and Charlie (Aden Young) are apart. A quick blast of a public information film dissolves into Lily arriving in Canada and the rest of the film rests almost entirely on Friel's performance. Portraying a delicate balance of European femme fatal and ordinary London lass, she gets it right every time.
Additional to her fish out of water dilemma is Lily's growing attraction to local boy Joe (Loren Dean). Lily, who dresses in risqué clothing to provoke the old-fashioned community, is continually referred to as a 'tart' and because of Friel's balanced performance and the juxtaposition of modern and wartime values the film's ending is genuinely uncertain.
This is a war-story with no war. The only death takes place off camera, the only major disfigurement is the result of polio not violence. With no pretensions to heroics or history, The War Bride is a simple story, well told.
