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It seems impossible that this film was made almost 32 years ago -- Kurt Russell and Goldie Hawn look almost unrecognizable in "Swing Shift," from 1984, directed by Jonathan Demme and also starring Christine Lahti and Ed Harris.
Hawn plays Kay Walsh, married to Jack Walsh (Harris) in 1941. They're a happy couple. Pearl Harbor happens, and Jack enlists. Kay goes to work as a riveter in an airplane factory, working the swing shift. There she meets Mike Lockhart (Russell) who immediately pursues her -- for six months, until she finally agrees to come and hear him play the trumpet at a swing club. They begin an affair.
Meanwhile, Kay has befriended her neighbor, Hazel (Lahti), who has had her heart broken more than once by her boyfriend Biscuits (Fred Ward). and she is also working in the factory.
Kay finds a community in the factory, people she can spend time with outside of work. Then, abruptly, the war is nearly over, and Jack returns.
Nice wartime story about the women left behind, the loneliness, their new independence, and a world outside of their homes. There is the expectation that this is all temporary. When the war is over, they will be let go, the men will return to their jobs, and the women will go home where they belong. Meanwhile the women have been given a taste of a new kind of freedom.
"Swing Shift" is about the societal changes during the war for both sexes. Men saw war, with its accompanying camaraderie, death, horror, and separation from loved ones. They came home to wives who may have been earning more than they did, who could fix the toaster, and had a new set of friends. It was a time of big adjustment.
Hawn is sympathetic as Kay, a pretty woman who married very young and finds it hard to get along without her husband. As the man who doesn't care if a woman is married or not, Kurt Russell is fine -- he falls for Kay, perhaps picking up on her loneliness, and pursues her with determination.
The showy role belongs to Christine Lahti, who gives an emotional performance, hurt by the man she loves and unable to get over him. Lahti has always been a wonderful actress who has given many powerful performances -- as an ex-hippie living underground in "Running on Empty," and in many striking TV performances. She shows her stuff here.
Holly Hunter, Lisa Pelikan, and Chris Lemmon, who all went on to varying levels of success, have small parts. Good movie, and a good look at wartime at home.
score 7/10
blanche-2 8 February 2016
Reprint: https://www.imdb.com/review/rw3410581/ |
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30-3-2021 00:05:07