Welcome back for another featured Letterboxd List review! This week we’re returning to the Berlinale Golden Bear Winners list, and this time around, things take a much lighter turn with Hobson’s Choice.
Title: Hobson’s Choice
Director: David Lean
Released: April 19, 1954 (Theatrical – Canada, Germany, the United Kingdom)
Runtime: 1 hour 48 minutes
Henry Hobson (Charles Laughton) is a Salford bootmaker with a successful shop, three daughters, and an ego roughly the size of his inventory. He drinks too much, talks too loudly, and has decided that while his two younger daughters Alice and Vicky are of marrying age, his eldest, Maggie (Brenda De Banzie), at thirty is simply too old for all that. Her job is to run the household. End of discussion.
What Henry hasn’t accounted for is that Maggie has absolutely no intention of accepting that arrangement.
She sets her sights on Will Mossop (John Mills), the shy and gifted shoemaker in her father’s shop. Will is talented, meek, and completely blindsided by the whole thing. Maggie doesn’t much care. She knows what she’s doing, and she knows it’ll send her father through the roof.
What follows is a battle of wills between a controlling father who has spent years hoarding power over his household, and a daughter who’s no longer interested in playing along.
It’s a bit of a surprise to see Hobson’s Choice in David Lean’s filmography. This is, after all, the same director behind Lawrence of Arabia, Brief Encounter, and The Bridge on the River Kwai. Not exactly someone you’d associate with warm, witty British comedy. And yet, it works.
What makes Hobson’s Choice so interesting is that Maggie isn’t simply the hero pushing back against her father’s grip. She’s cut from the same cloth. Controlling, transactional, and completely certain she knows best. The difference is that where Henry hoards power for his own sake, Maggie makes the power work for her. Same instincts, just put to better use.
Brenda De Banzie is simply phenomenal in the role of Maggie. She could easily read as cold or ruthless, but De Banzie keeps her grounded and easy to root for throughout. John Mills matches her beat for beat. Watching Will go from a man who jumps at his own shadow to someone who walks with a quiet confidence, with his name on the shop being the turning point, is one of the more satisfying character journeys you’ll come across.
It also has an almost theatrical quality to it. The sets feel deliberately stage-like, and rather than working against it, that approach keeps your attention exactly where it belongs, on the characters and the power dynamics playing out between them. There’s also a sequence midway through where a thoroughly drunk Henry becomes transfixed by the moon’s reflection in puddles before tumbling through an open cellar door that’s genuinely impressive filmmaking for its era.
If you haven’t seen it, this is a pretty easy one to recommend.
If you’ve seen Hobson’s Choice, I’d be interested to hear your take.