The
parents of beloved British illustrator and children’s book writer Raymond
Briggs were the generation before Britain’s “Greatest Generation,” but they
went through the same Great Depression and Second World War. They always kept
their chins up and a stiff upper lip, but it was almost too much for them to
bear when they learned their only son was transferring to art school. Briggs
told their deceptively simple, emotionally resonant story in a bestselling graphic
novel that Roger Mainwood adapted as the BBC-BFI-produced animated feature Ethel & Ernest (trailer here), which officially qualified for Academy Award
consideration.
Ernest
Briggs will work as a milkman for thirty-seven years, while Ethel, a former
lady’s maid, toils as a clerk, but she chafes at the suggestion they are
working class or “common laborers.” She votes Conservative and he supports
Labour, but they both generally agree Churchill is the best man for the job
during WWII. These were difficult years for the Briggs, because they were forced
to send their only son Raymond to live with his kindly spinster aunts in the
country, for his own safety. As a volunteer fireman, Briggs also witnesses the
horrors of war first-hand and have a few close scrapes of his own. Yet, these
sequences are by far the strongest of the film.
Of
course, the Briggs continue to carry on, watching Twentieth Century history
unfold from the vantage point of their cozy Wimbledon Park home. Churchill will
be voted out and then triumphantly return, man will walk on the Moon, and Margaret
Thatcher will stand for office. However, they are more concerned about the
employment prospects for their slightly wayward artist son and his unruly hair.
E&E is a gentle film
that gives voice to characters that are often overlooked in media, falling in between
tony dramas like Downton Abbey and
grubby melodramas, such as EastEnders.
Conservative in temperament, they always maintained decorum—and in Ernest’s
case, he was a Labour man who actually worked. Jim Broadbent and Brenda Blethyn
are absolutely pitch-perfect as the Briggses. You can always hear in their
voices a hopefully optimism tempered by their past disappointments and modest
expectations.
The
hand-drawn animation is nostalgic, in a sophisticated way, in keeping with
Raymond Briggs’ original illustrations. It is a handsome film, nicely supported
by Carl Davis’s pleasant, era-appropriate score. Ethel & Ernest also features “In the Blink of an Eye,” penned
and performed by Sir Paul McCartney. Frankly, it is one of his best tunes in
years and it hits all the film’s themes square on the nose, so it is rather
baffling that it wasn’t submitted for best original song. Seriously, he was one
of the Beatles. Remember?
