#37 ‘The Best Years of Our Lives’

Masculinity Wounded, Femininity Waiting

The Best Years of Our Lives (1946) is Hollywood’s solemn attempt at reckoning with the aftermath of World War II—a prestige weepie that follows three returning veterans as they navigate the chasm between war heroism and civilian irrelevance. It’s earnest, humane, and beautifully made. It’s also an unapologetically gendered vision of recovery, where men get inner turmoil and character arcs, and women get patience, piety, and the privilege of waiting quietly while the boys piece themselves back together.

Directed by William Wyler with grace and gravity, the film follows Fred (Dana Andrews), a decorated pilot turned soda jerk; Al (Fredric March), a banker drowning in whiskey and postwar disillusionment; and Homer (Harold Russell), a sailor who lost both hands and now wears prosthetic hooks. Their stories are stitched together with compassion—but make no mistake, this is a movie about male pain, male reintegration, and male entitlement to sympathy.

Fred’s arc is particularly telling: he returns to find his shallow pin-up wife (a barely sketched caricature of postwar femininity) unsupportive, and quickly transfers his affections to Peggy, the saintly daughter of another veteran, who falls for him after watching him suffer prettily in a diner booth. His trauma makes him desirable. His failure makes him deep. Meanwhile, Peggy is reprimanded for trying to “steal” a married man, even though his wife is more plot device than person.

Then there’s Homer, played by real-life veteran Harold Russell, in a genuinely affecting performance that brings physical disability into the spotlight with rare candor. But even Homer’s struggle is framed in terms of whether his sweetheart Wilma will still love him. She does, of course, because she’s the right kind of woman: self-sacrificing, loyal, eternally understanding. She marries his trauma without hesitation, and the film treats this as noble—because love, in this universe, means never needing anything for yourself.

Al’s wife Milly (Myrna Loy) fares better—she’s warm, wise, and world-weary. But even she exists to absorb her husband’s drunken outbursts, soothe his ego, and be the quiet backbone of his redemption. She doesn't get a monologue. She doesn't get a breakdown. She gets a smile, a dinner table, and the satisfaction of watching him recover into someone vaguely tolerable again.

The film is technically brilliant—Gregg Toland’s deep-focus cinematography, Hugo Friedhofer’s aching score, and the editing all lend gravitas. But under the surface, The Best Years of Our Lives tells us exactly whose years we’re talking about. The title doesn’t refer to the women who kept households afloat, who bore the silence, who aged ten years waiting. It refers to the men—whose years were lost, whose glory faded, and who now expect a soft landing made of unconditional feminine devotion.

3.5 out of 5 discharged medals
(One for Russell’s raw honesty. One for Loy’s quiet excellence. One for the film’s bravery in showing the ugly side of coming home. Half a star for trying to face a broken world with grace. The missing stars are still waiting at the train station, holding casseroles and swallowing their own stories.)