Romance in the Lead Up to the World’s Fair
I’ve long heard of Meet Me in St. Louis. Since I love musicals, it was on my list to watch, but when I finally did, I was disappointed.
The film follows the Smith family, starting in the summer of 1903. They have five kids, four of them girls, and the older two daughters, Esther and Rose (Judy Garland and Lucille Bremer) can think of nothing but the young men they are hoping to marry.
But that’s not all that is going on in their world. For one thing, St. Louis is getting ready to host a world’s fair. And, as autumn falls on the family, their father (Leon Ames) has some shocking news. What will happen to them before they hit spring?
Stories that cover a long period of time need to be very careful as they try to navigate those times jumps. In this case, the movie didn’t do it well. Honestly, I was trying to figure out what the central plot of the movie was. I figured, like many musicals, it was the romance of the two daughters, but when we hit autumn, we get a long sequence on Halloween night involving the two younger sisters (played by Margaret O'Brien and Joan Carroll) that really has little to do with anything else in the movie. Then there’s the plot set in motion about half way through. It could have been a great plot twist, but instead, it felt forced into the movie.
Really, it felt more like short stories only connected because they had the same characters. Which can work, but in this case, didn’t really work for me.
The female characters are certainly the stars of this story, which is fine. Obviously, I love female driven stories, just look at the many books I read and review here. However, the male characters were so underdeveloped it hampered the story. The Smith brother has so little to do I actually didn’t even figure out who he was for a while. The father is a one note head of the family who will not be questioned. And the love interests? We don’t get to know them well enough to be invested in the romance.
While the dance numbers are fun, the songs themselves aren’t that memorable. And I do have to question if teens, even in 1903, would have been that excited to dance to “Skip to My Lou.” The exception to the forgettable songs is “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas,” which was originally written for this film. It’s one of my favorite Christmas carols, so it is fun to see it’s premier.
None of this is a reflection on the actors and actresses, who all do a good job with the material they have. But there’s only so much they can do with a poor script.
I suspect that my take on the film is fueled in part by the fact that I didn’t see this until I was well into adulthood. I’ve met people who absolutely love it, and it is because they have fond memories of watching it for years. So there are people who love this movie.
Unfortunately, I’m not one of them. I won’t be wasting my time watching Meet Me in St. Louis a second time.
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