NR | 1h 36m | Drama | 2023
When I initially heard the title, “The Reverend and Mrs Simpson,” I thought I was in for the kind of British drama where a vicar politely pours tea, and someone stares out a quaint cottage window.
This film eventually reveals a much harsher storyline. This is 1950s England, not long after the dramatic conclusion to World War II. Victory had arrived, yet grief lingered.
The story opens as a German war bride comes to England with her young son after marrying a British serviceman. Back in the day, war brides who married servicemen from other countries during or soon after wartime, later moved to their husbands’ homelands. That move carried risks, homesickness, and uncertainty; for German women arriving in England after World War II, it could also mean walking into a country where their accents alone could turn rooms cold.
Although the film is focused on a narrow storyline, its deeper theme is far-reaching. Yes, Nazi Germany committed monstrous crimes, and any honest discussion has to say that plainly.
Still, various sections of the population—leaders, soldiers, collaborators, children, widows, refugees, and battered families—should not all be judged by the same passport.
This is where “The Reverend and Mrs Simpson” finds its most useful discomfort. Nazi Germany’s crimes sit behind everything here, and the movie has no reason to soften them. Yet the war bride also represents another piece of history, the civilian who becomes a walking reminder of a defeated country.
A Village Closes Ranks
England, 1950. German war bride Anna Simpson (Anne Scherliess) has recently arrived with her young son Peter (Karl Lichtenwald), expecting to join her British husband, soldier Jack Simpson (Julian Gamm).Anna and Peter leave the local church where the Rev. Charles Wilson (Richard Dee-Roberts) serves. He notices their distress and brings them back inside, where he discovers fresh bruises on Anna’s body.
Anna and Peter’s situation worsens when they return home to find an eviction notice on the door, and the locks have been changed. Jack isn’t there, and the house that was supposed to give them a future has shut them out.
With nowhere else to go, they turn to Wilson and his housekeeper, Miss Evans (Judith Paris). While Evans has sympathy for them, she knows helping a German woman so soon after World War II could bring trouble from the local community.
That trouble follows Anna and Peter through daily life. Local women gossip about Jack running off with another woman, while Peter is bullied at school. Anna’s drinking problem also surfaces after Wilson notices missing bottles of sherry.
A Fine British Production
This film gets a lot of mileage from its natural surroundings. British productions often know how to make environments do more than sit in the background, and the filmmakers use that skill well here.During the scene where Anna and Peter approach the house they’ve been locked out of, the wind moves around them with brutal timing while tree branches twist overhead. It almost feels as if the weather itself has joined the local committee against her.
The period work is also very impressive for an indie feature. The houses, church spaces, little shops, and period costumes create a convincing pocket of 1950s English life. You’ll see old cars passing through the frame, buttoned-up manners, and even a retro radio that brings the warm crackle of a bygone era.
The performances are top-shelf. Scherliess gives Anna a frayed, weary quality that fits a woman dealing with public cruelty and private damage at the same time. Dee-Roberts also works well as the caring reverend, with his decency coming through in practical ways: food, shelter, and a shoulder to lean on when Anna has virtually nothing left.
Things do get a bit heavy-handed at times, and the local prejudice is often drawn with a thick marker. Some of the supporting characters could have used more development, as well, especially the locals who hiss from the hedges.
“The Reverend and Mrs. Simpson” has enough sincerity and craft to stay with you. People remember war long after the guns stop firing, and violence and cruelty resurface in public and private civilian life, even as official hostilities are over.
