“Jimmy” is a biopic of Jimmy Stewart that
focuses on his role in WWII. It was directed by Aaron Burns who is noted for
his faith-based films. It cost $14 million. The movie features a cameo from
Karolyn Grimes who played Zuzu Bailey in “It’s a Wonderful Life.” One of the
executive producers was Stewart’s daughter Kelly Stewart Harcourt. She also has
a cameo. Her involvement means the family was pleased with the film. And not
upset with the historical license.
The film is bookended by the making of “It’s a Wonderful
Life”. Five years earlier, Jimmy Stewart (KJ Apa) is coming off a Best Actor
Oscar for “The Philadelphia Story”. He receives a draft notice and when he informs
Louis B. Mayer (Jason Alexander) of MGM, Mayer tells his moneymaker that he’ll
take care of it. Surprise, Jimmy wants to serve. He enlists in the Army Air
Corps as a B-24 Liberator bomber pilot. The movie foregoes the traditional
training sequence and sends Stewart’s bomber group across the Atlantic to Great
Britain. They lose a bomber to enemy fire during the trip. Danger established. On
his first mission, his bomber is hit by flak, but Jimmy pulls it out of a death
dive and resumes his position in the formation. This is a clue that the
screenwriter is going to be using the historical license excuse.
Stewart will end up flying 20 missions, but the movie covers
only a few. This is because it has to find time for Jimmy’s romance with an
upper-class British woman. Julia (Kara Kilmer) will have to deal with her beau’s
increasing PTSD. Jimmy returns home in 1945 and is not mentally ready to return
to acting. His friend, director Frank Kapra (Max Casella) talks him into making
“It’s a Wonderful Life”. It’s not going to be like get back on a bike.
Two minutes into the movie, I wrote in my notes “hokey?”
The next two hours proved the answer to that question was a resounding “yes!”
However, I don’t think that will be a dealbreaker for most people who go to see
this movie. BTW based on the audience I saw it with, those people will be
mostly the elderly. I am in that demographic, but I am also a hardcore war
movie fanatic. So, if you are reading this review, I feel you will probably
find it hokey. For instance, when Jimmy’s co-pilot shows him a picture of his
girlfriend, I don’t think many of my fellow audience members knew he was dead
meat. But all my readers will know it. I don’t know if the screenwriter doesn’t
know this cliché or he didn’t think his core audience would know it. And part
of the hokeyness are the religious moments in the film. The movie does not jam
Christianity down the viewers’ throats, but it is not subtle either.
Jimmy Stewart is one of my favorite actors and he is one
of my favorite historical figures. And not to overuse the word hokey, it does
fit his personality and many of the characters he played. Apa does a good job
impersonating him. If you haven’t seen many of Stewart’s movies, you might find
the performance to be a bit hammy. It doesn’t help that the rest of the cast
thinks they are in a play. Alexander plays the caricature of a villainous
Hollywood studio boss. Rob Riggle is wooden as the gruff bomber boss. Stewart’s
crew is all “aww shucks”. It was a poor decision to use Hedda Hopper, the
gossip columnist, as a framing device. Her appearances in the narrative are
annoying.
The film suffers from one of the biggest problems of the
series “Masters of the Air”. There is not enough time spent on missions. There
is just enough to show that the CGI is average and not distractingly bad. The interior
scenes in the bomber are embarrassingly unrealistic. There is little that will
inform you about the air war. There is one poignant loss, but the movie only
implies the high level of losses by having a pilot complain that nobody cares.
Instead of the more obvious “how the hell do they expect us to get to 30
missions?!” Jimmy certainly cares. Too much, as Patton would have sniffed. He
ends up with justifiable PTSD which creates the template for the postwar scenes.
This is a bit trite, but does accurately reflect Stewart’s rough road after the
war.
A movie like “Jimmy” has to be judged partly on its adherence
to history and realism. I read a book about Stewart’s WWII experiences, but
that was year’s ago so I was not sure what parts were accurate. “Jimmy” is the
kind of movie where I am watching and constantly saying to myself, “That can’t
possibly be true.” I’m often surprised that some of the most unlikely plot
developments are actually true. This is not the case in this movie. However, if
you want to see the movie, don’t read beyond this point and don’t look at the
grade because it is one letter lower because of veracity problems (as are
pointed out in the historical accuracy section below).
“Jimmy” is the kind of old school Hollywood film
(actually closer to a Hallmark movie) that critics will sneer at but audiences
will enjoy. It’s the only movie we will get about the most heroic actor that
served in WWII so it will have to do. And if it gets people to dust off some of
his movies that will be great because he is on the Mount Rushmore of American
male actors.
GRADE = C-
HISTORICAL
ACCURACY: Louis B. Mayer did try to
dissuade Stewart from enlisting and although the movie makes him into a
villain, he certainly was right as far as MGM was concerned. Compare Stewart to
other stars, like John Wayne, who dodged service for legitimate reasons. Stewart’s
service is close to Clark Gable’s with Gable flying a few missions as a gunner,
but mostly making films for the military. Stewart’s best friend, Henry Fonda,
also enlisted and served in the Navy. Stewart was the earliest big star to
enlist and significantly did it 8 months before Pearl Harbor. The film oddly
does not cover the lengths Stewart went to get in. He failed the first physical
because he was underweight at 6’3”, but only 138 pounds. He had to eat a
special diet to get to the weight for the second attempt. The movie does not
indicate that he was an accomplished pilot already. He spent the first year
making films, including “Winning Your Wings” which is mentioned in the movie. He
also trained other pilots. He pushed hard for an overseas assignment which
definitely showed he was a patriot. No bombers were lost on the transatlantic
trip. The movie bizarrely describes the trip as “over the German-controlled North
Atlantic”. The implication that a bomber was shot down by a u-boat is
laughable. The first mission was to a u-boat facility, but the damaging of his
bomber and rejoining the formation did not happen. He did have a mission where
they had engine trouble and had to return to base. The bomber that took its
place as leader was shot down with the loss of the crew. Stewart suffered from
survivor’s guilt which contributed to his PTSD.
The mission where he tried to convince another squadron that it was
taking the wrong route is the closest the movie comes to the truth. Stewart did
make the decision to follow with his squadron to support the idiot who was way
off in his navigation. They did pass over Paris. This was the mission which
earned him the Distinguished Flying Cross. He did get promoted to Major and
then Colonel, making him a very rare private to colonel in four years. The crew
was fictionalized. He did not have a set bomber or crew. He flew on various bombers,
often as mission leader in the co-pilot’s chair. There was no incident where a
bomber he had flown in crashed when he had not been able to pilot it. There was
an incident where his flight engineer went AWOL, so his bomber had to stay
home. The bomber that took its place was shot down. This was additional survivor’s
guilt. The movie has Stewart waiting for his bomber to come back. It would have
been more appropriate to stick to the truth of the stressful times Stewart waited
for his group to return. In one raid, the group lost 13 of 25 bombers. He did have a mission where flak
blew a hole in the floor of the cockpit. When he returned to America, he did go
through a time when he thought about giving up Hollywood to work in his father’s
store. It is true that Frank Capra (who spent the war making the acclaimed “Why
We Fight” documentaries) convinced him to make “It’s a Wonderful Life”. It was
both their first films after the war. The movie correctly mentions that the
movie was not a hit. Stewart did have a tough time making the film and he did
channel some of his PTSD into his best performance. He received an Oscar
nomination for it.
The movie lays religion on a bit thick, but it is true
that Stewart was a religious man. His father did give him a pocket Bible/Psalms.
As far as his romances, he did not propose to Ginger Rogers. They had dated a
while, but that was in 1935. The Julia character stands in for the mysterious
British woman who he dated for a while. He never revealed who she was.
