I'll Be Seeing You

Two people meet on a train at Christmas. She is out of prison on an eight day furlough, he is being treated in a military hospital for what the period called battle fatigue and is briefly outside. Neither tells the other. William Dieterle shapes it as a romantic drama, but the real subject is shame: both are hiding a past, and they hide it in the same way. Ginger Rogers plays well outside her comic register and Joseph Cotten chooses to show the physical side of the damage. Made in 1944 while the war was still running, it is one of the rare American films of the moment to take trauma as its subject. The scenes at the family table are the best in it. Who it is for: viewers who like forties drama and films about the psychological cost of the war. Who it is not for: anyone wanting incident, since this is almost entirely conversation.