Friendly Persuasion
Written by Andreas Babiolakis
This review is a part of the Palme d’Or Project: a review of every single Palme d’Or winner at Cannes Film Festival. Friendly Persuasion won the third Palme d’Or at the 1957 festival.
The film was selected by the following jury.
Jury President: André Maurois (with Jean Cocteau as an Honorary President).
Jury: Maurice Genevoix, Georges Huisman, Maurice Lehmann, Marcel Pagnol, Michael Powell, Jules Romains, Dolores del Rio, George Stevens, Vladimir Viček.
It may be a bit of a hot take, but I much prefer William Wyler’s more scaled-down films to his epics. I got so much more out of The Heiress, Dodsworth, and The Children’s Hour than I ever did out of his eleven Oscar winner Ben-Hur (films that kind of feel in-between like Mrs. Miniver and Wuthering Heights are preferable as well). I don’t think he does large films poorly or anything (quite the contrary: he was one of the first American directors to really adjust to ambitious projects well enough), but I do believe that he loses a bit of the humanity and personal connection in the process. One of my favourite films of his is the escapist classic Roman Holiday, and I’ll never forget the radiating magnetism of Princess Ann once we see her in her element at the end of the film. Wyler’s larger films possess the same glamour and prestige, but consider that we didn’t have this long trip with Ann across Rome, and that impressionable quality is gone. This is what his larger films feel like: an immediate draw, but I always feel a bit distanced from the core of what’s going on.
Enter Friendly Persuasion: Wyler’s Palme d’Or winner that came well enough into his career that the director was beyond accredited and respected by now. Despite Wyler’s honest intentions to get us involved with the Quaker family at the heart of this Civil War epic, the picture still feels remote enough that I was more spellbound by the filmic technology than I was the actual story itself. While not nearly as preachy as something like Hacksaw Ridge (which also possessed some brilliant technical capabilities, mind you), the overall question of when — if ever — violence is ever applicable resonates from the religious, pacifist ways of the Birdwell family, who we attend church with and are invited into the home of. I do appreciate that Wyler actually wants us to get familiar with this family, as Friendly Persuasion devotes enough time towards actually growing with the Birdwells and seeing what they’re all about. When the time is right (after a few moments that tease what is to come), the horrors of the Civil War are tossed in, and this portrait of a happy family begins to get challenged. I think Wyler poses these hypotheses quite well (how do we help out without fighting? What should religious people do when threatened? Are we unpatriotic if we don’t fight?), and the film even ends on a pebble of ambiguity that you can kick around for a minute or two. I don’t think there is enough going on for some serious soul searching to take place, though.
Friendly Persuasion boasts some interesting questions, but it could have done a little more digging to present us some more impressionable findings.
Nonetheless, Friendly Persuasion is at least enough of an experience to matter. You’ve got a motion picture full of phenomenal talents (Gary Cooper as the central character, with Anthony Perkins, Dorothy McGuire, Phyllis Love and others around him) inside of lavish sets and landscapes, with enough going on to keep you interested at all times. Some of these elements feel like distractions from the deeper questions Friendly Persuasion intends on asking, but they still make the film beyond worthwhile. It’s a great watch to complete at least once, but I do wish there was something that kept me thinking after the fact. Friendly Persuasion digs deeply enough to present some questions about morality, but it isn’t deep or daring enough to stick with you. It’s still a well assembled film, and maybe it felt far more impactful when it was once released. As far as a Palme d’Or winner goes, it has the artistry to make sense, but this is such a case where an iconic filmmaker like William Wyler could have had this award for something far more deserving. Still, he was worthy of at least once, and Friendly Persuasion just happened to be that title.
Andreas Babiolakis has a Masters degree in Film and Photography Preservation and Collections Management from Toronto Metropolitan University, as well as a Bachelors degree in Cinema Studies from York University. His favourite times of year are the Criterion Collection flash sales and the annual Toronto International Film Festival.