80
Essentially a collection of sweetly autobiographical anecdotes of English family life during World War II.
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What are people saying?
What are critics saying?
90
Washington Post by Desson Thomson
John Boorman's childhood and the London Blitz happened to coincide. Which is great for the movie Hope and Glory, because he turns both events into exquisite myth.
90
The New York Times by Janet Maslin
Hope and Glory has an invitingly nostalgic spirit and a fine eye for the magical details that a little boy might notice.
75
Chicago Reader by Jonathan Rosenbaum
At the same time that Boorman seduces us with such enchantments, he also deceives us with a crafty little googly of his own--persuading us that he is embarking on a fresh adventure while aiming straight for the heart of old-fashioned English cinema.
90
The New Yorker by Pauline Kael
The movie is wonderfully free of bellyaching; it's a large-scale comic vision, with 90-foot barrage balloons as part of the party atmosphere.
100
Washington Post by Rita Kempley
Hope and Glory is so enjoyable you want it to be a 16-part mini-series. When it's over, you sit staring at the credits, as you would the last page of a good book, wishing for another chapter.
75
Chicago Sun-Times by Roger Ebert
There is something almost perverse in the way Boorman defines his point of view. He is not concerned in this film about the tragedy of war, or the meaning of war, but only with the specific experience of war for a grade-school boy. Drawing from his autobiographical memories, he has not given the little boy in the movie any more insights than such a little boy should have.
60
Appealing, emotional and with a strong enough performance by Rice-Edwards as the boy in his own little war-free world.