"Now, Voyager" (1942)

Charlotte Vale (Bette Davis) is a depressed and frumpish young woman, completely dominated by her heartlessly selfish mother (Gladys Cooper). She is introduced to Dr. Jaquith (Claude Rains) who persuades her to come to his sanatorium to be treated and helped. By the time she is well enough to leave the treatment, she is now an elegant and confident woman. She goes on a cruise and falls in love with kind and attentive Jerry Durrance (Paul Henreid), despite the fact he is already married. However, when she returns home, her refusal to comply with her mother’s desires, so infuriates her mother and Charlotte must fight to claim her independence. 

I don’t really remember what exactly made me interested in watching this initially. In the beginning of this movie, I wasn’t particularly engaged with the characters, or the dialogue. While black and white movies don’t usually phase me in the slightest, I found myself unable to slip into the story as seamlessly as I have done with others.  And yet, I couldn’t quite bring myself to turn away from it.

I found the character of Charlette intriguing, more so as the movie went on. She was very diverse. I wasn’t expecting this when I started watching this film.  Bette Davis was such a pretty actress. Her character makes a big transformation from the beginning scenes to later ones on the cruise. It did, I have to say, kind of annoy me a little that she had to become this pretty before anyone payed her any much attention, or start to notice her. I would say it’s cliché, but it probably wasn’t really at the time. For example, when she is getting off the cruise many people whom she has met come up to her saying their goodbyes and how much they enjoyed her company and remarking they ought to stay in touch – not in so precise words, but this was the jist. It irked me to think they wouldn’t have given two hoots about her had she stepped on the cruise in earlier scenes. Oh well.

  

As for the other characters, well, I felt like throttling the mother because she was just so horrible to Charlotte! A nasty character to be fair…even if she couldn’t see how damaging her actions were, herself. She thought she was doing everything right of course. But I found her so infuriating to watch, awful to listen to. Particularly in the moment Charlotte comes home from the cruise. She shows no happiness in having her home, but immediately starts domineering her all over again and making an effort to “mould” her into what she wanted her to be, rather than being happy to see her daughter again. Oh she was infuriating. Words can’t even begin! She is a really, really, really rotten character. Rotton! I was so happy when Charlotte managed to stand up to her once she’d come home, but the mother’s persistence was so much I nearly felt the need to turn off the film. The only thing that prevented me was my curiousity in regards to how the film would conclude.

In later scenes Charlotte returns to the sanatorium where she meets and takes under her wing, a little girl very much resembling Charlotte herself towards the beginning of the film. I loved the relationship that blossomed between them. It was lovely and so nice for Charlotte as she'd never felt needed in her life before now. Incidentally, neither had the little girl. I really liked these scenes.

I was surprised to have enjoyed this film as much as I did. Not because it’s bad in any way, but I just hadn’t thought it would have been my kind of movie. Just goes to show, really! I can't say it's one of the best movies I've seen, but once you get into it, it’s really a rather good movie!

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