Pretty Good

Good story, Not enough for a whole film

Blending excellent reporting and strong storytelling, this is a disturbing film truly stranger than fiction

It’s not bad or unwatchable but despite the amplitude of the spectacle, the end result is underwhelming.

It seems impossible that this film was made almost 32 years ago -- Kurt Russell and Goldie Hawn look almost unrecognizable in "Swing Shift," from 1984, directed by Jonathan Demme and also starring Christine Lahti and Ed Harris.Hawn plays Kay Walsh, married to Jack Walsh (Harris) in 1941. They're a happy couple. Pearl Harbor happens, and Jack enlists. Kay goes to work as a riveter in an airplane factory, working the swing shift. There she meets Mike Lockhart (Russell) who immediately pursues her -- for six months, until she finally agrees to come and hear him play the trumpet at a swing club. They begin an affair.Meanwhile, Kay has befriended her neighbor, Hazel (Lahti), who has had her heart broken more than once by her boyfriend Biscuits (Fred Ward). and she is also working in the factory.Kay finds a community in the factory, people she can spend time with outside of work. Then, abruptly, the war is nearly over, and Jack returns.Nice wartime story about the women left behind, the loneliness, their new independence, and a world outside of their homes. There is the expectation that this is all temporary. When the war is over, they will be let go, the men will return to their jobs, and the women will go home where they belong. Meanwhile the women have been given a taste of a new kind of freedom."Swing Shift" is about the societal changes during the war for both sexes. Men saw war, with its accompanying camaraderie, death, horror, and separation from loved ones. They came home to wives who may have been earning more than they did, who could fix the toaster, and had a new set of friends. It was a time of big adjustment.Hawn is sympathetic as Kay, a pretty woman who married very young and finds it hard to get along without her husband. As the man who doesn't care if a woman is married or not, Kurt Russell is fine -- he falls for Kay, perhaps picking up on her loneliness, and pursues her with determination.The showy role belongs to Christine Lahti, who gives an emotional performance, hurt by the man she loves and unable to get over him. Lahti has always been a wonderful actress who has given many powerful performances -- as an ex-hippie living underground in "Running on Empty," and in many striking TV performances. She shows her stuff here.Holly Hunter, Lisa Pelikan, and Chris Lemmon, who all went on to varying levels of success, have small parts. Good movie, and a good look at wartime at home.

Jonathan Demme directed this period piece set during World War II, where women were recruited to take over from men in airplane making factories, because the men had to serve(unless they were declared 4-F).Goldie Hawn, Christine Lahti, and Holly Hunter play the women, while Ed Harris, Fred Ward, and Kurt Russell play the men. The women must overcome the sexism and skepticism from management, and some of the men left behind. With their husbands gone, the women find that their increased responsibility makes them more involved with the world, but also gives way to some temptations as well...Surprisingly bland, even lifeless film feels longer than it is, though it does have a good cast, story doesn't hold viewer interest much, and it feels like a wasted opportunity to portray an important part of the home front aspect of the war.

When watching this movie, in the beginning I found it difficult to believe Kay Walsh really was Goldie Hawn. This Goldie-movie is not the most typical one, but the character sure has similar characteristics in her life than the other roles Goldie has done in her other, later movies. The way Swing shift differs the most from the other Hawn`s movies, is that this one seems to describe the time the events took a place: the time when USA was in the war with Japan and what happened to the lives of women and men in that time. So what I´m trying to say, there may be some historical value, too - not only entertaining meaning, but a telling purpose.

I thought the film was excellent -- not only did it accurately depict what was going on during the war, but the interactions of characters was excellent as was the storyline -- it examines friendship, adultery, remorse and a wide range of other emotions.The chemistry between Hawn and Russell is so thick you could cut it with a knife -- this was, in fact, the film where they met and began their life together as a couple off-screen as well.Adultery was an all too common reality of war that should not be ignored -- this is one of the few films that shows what happened on this side of the ocean, rather than concentrating on the bloodshed and adultery on the servicemen side.In the end, the film takes the heartache and remorse and reaffirms the ability of people to choose to forgive, go on with their marriage and re-establish the love.