THE WAR BRIDE
Year: 2001
UK: Miracle Communications
Cast: Anna Friel, Brenda Fricker, Molly Parker, Loren Dean, Aden Young, Julie Cox, Benjamin Boyd, Caroline Cave, Alex Rice
Director: Lyndon Chubbuck
Countries: UK / Canada
UK: 107 mins
UK Certificate: PG contains mild bad language and sexuality
UK Release Date: 29 November 2002
Synopsis
Lily (Anna Friel) and Sophie (Julie Cox) are high-spirited girls who don't let the trials of life get them down. Both orphans the only family they know are the other girls they grew up with in a London orphanage. Even during the height of the blitz in war-torn London in the 1940s, they manage to make the best of their situation. While Lily is self-sufficient though, Sophie dreams of finding a rich man to give her all the things that have been lacking in her life.
Spending their evenings at the dance hall is a pleasant diversion from the horrors of the bombings, and the ideal place to meet dashing Canadian soldiers. When Charlie Travis (Aden Young) enters the picture, Lily falls hopelessly in love with him and within two weeks, finds herself married and expecting their first child. Sophie fulfils her dream when she meets Louie (Benjamin Boyd), a French Canadian soldier from a rich family.
Both are war brides but with a war on their lives are turned upside down when their soldier husbands are shipped out and both friends receive invitations from their respective in-laws to move to Canada.
When Lily receives the call to move to live with Charlie's family in Canada, she is filled with excitement and the anticipation of living on a sprawling prairie ranch. After an arduous journey to Canada, Lily is greeted by the harsh reality of a windblown shack in the middle of nowhere, a cold mother-in-law Betty (Brenda Fricker) and a resentful sister-in-law. Feeling lost and alone, the future looks bleak for Lily. But being a true survivor, Lily is determined to turn her situation around and is befriended by Joe (Loren Dean), Charlie's best friend who has escaped being enlisted to fight in the war and becomes firm friends with Lily.
When Sophie receives notice that she's to stay with his family in Canada, she is sure that her prayers have been answered. However, she soon finds out that living the life she has always wanted comes with a price. When her husband dies in a POW camp she soon discovers that the family she thought she was a part of doesn't want her. In the end, Sophie returns to London and rebuilds her life on her own terms.
Lily's husband Charlie spends the next five years experiencing the unspeakable horrors of war and comes back to Canada a changed man, innocence lost. He returns to his wife, with whom he has only spent a total of thirteen days in the five years of their marriage. Are Lily and Charlie able to start over?