David Lean made Lawrence of Arabia and Doctor Zhivago. Then, in 1970, he used that same giant style on a small love story in Ireland. Critics mostly shrugged. The New York Times called it "very classy calendar art." Now Ryan's Daughter is out in a new 4K set, and the Journal's Peter Tonguette calls it one of the highlights of the fall home-video season.
The story is simple. Rosy Ryan, played by Sarah Miles, is a young Irishwoman who daydreams. She marries the village schoolteacher, Charles, in a hurry. Robert Mitchum plays him as a decent, mild man. Then a British officer arrives, scarred by World War I, and Rosy's wish for something bigger gets its chance. The film runs 206 minutes. Mr. Tonguette says it's really a three-person play dressed in a landscape.
Lean had a point to prove. Kevin Brownlow's 1996 biography says the director wanted to show critics he could still work small, the way he did in Brief Encounter in 1945. He wrote to Alec Guinness that the new film would be "much more intimate and private than the last two films." Then he went to the Irish coast and shot it as big as he could. It became long and costly. That gap, a small story told huge, is what the critics didn't like in 1970 and what Mr. Tonguette likes now.
Footprints in the sand
One scene says it all. Before the wedding, Rosy walks barefoot on an enormous beach. She steps into Charles's footprints, one by one, trying on his life. Then the surf comes in and wipes the prints away. She's about to marry a man who clears the bar and not much more. She knows it. The film lets you watch her know it. The new Warner Archive set adds a reprint of the souvenir program sold at the film's original roadshow screenings.
Our read
Our domain is Behavioral. Two lessons sit in this film, and both are about timing. First, the critics. They judged Ryan's Daughter in its opening weeks, against the two epics that came before it. That judgment stuck for decades. The film didn't change. The viewers did. Second, Rosy. She made the biggest decision of her life on a daydream and a quick checklist. The beach told her the truth before the wedding did.
Here's where it touches your money. Look at the one fund in your 401(k) you've been meaning to dump because of one bad year. This week, open the app and read why it's there. Maybe it's the bond sleeve that's supposed to be boring. Maybe it's the small-cap fund that lags when the giants run. A first-year review isn't a verdict on a long plan. The reverse holds too. If you're about to buy something because it looks good this month, step into the footprints first. Picture what the surf does to the plan if that first look fades. That's a question we're glad to walk through with you at your next review.