This Happy Breed Reviews
Empire Magazine
While not exacty up to contemporary standards of social realism this domestic saga was ground-breaking in its day and still captivates.
Full Review
| Original Score: 4/5
TIME Magazine
Top CriticThis Happy Breed is Noel Coward's proud and loving tribute to the unbreakable British backbone.
Turner Classic Movies Online
It's quite the study in domesticity and acceptance, and it even presents socialist activism and union strikes as some sort of idealistic fling...
Creative Loafing
This Happy Breed ranks with 1949's One Woman's Story and 1950's Madeleine as the most obscure title in David Lean's canon. That's a shame, because it's a wonderful motion picture.
Full Review
| Original Score: 4/4
Q Network Film Desk
not a particularly deep film, but it gets the details of human interaction and growth just right, providing a moving portrait of one family's durability in the midst of massive historical upheaval
Full Review
| Original Score: 3.5/4
Film's excellence comes mainly in the performances.
Ozus' World Movie Reviews
If it doesn't bore you to death with its contrived melodramatics then maybe its decorative historical background might catch your interest.
Full Review
| Original Score: B-
TV Guide's Movie Guide
This is an immensely charming movie, with many tears and many moments of warmth.
Full Review
| Original Score: 4/4
Film4
A toff propagandist's England, of course. But once you've got over its peculiar patrician tones and bitty structure, there's much to enjoy.
Time Out
Top CriticThough Lean and Coward are less happy here than in the brittle, refined atmosphere of Brief Encounter, their adventurous excursion into suburban Clapham remains endlessly fascinating.
