beatrice_otter (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
beatrice_otter) wrote2016-01-16 12:46 am
beatrice_otter) wrote2016-01-16 12:46 am
The Wrong Hobson
One of the great classic movies that I love is Hobson's Choice, a 1954 film about ... well, IMDB puts it this way: "Henry Hobson is a successful bootmaker and tyrannical widower of three daughters. The girls each want to leave their father by getting married, but Henry refuses as marriage traditions require him to pay out settlements."
Most places that give a synopsis of the film say something similar. Promotional materials for the movie (and the play it's based off of) focus on Henry Hobson. And they are all WRONG. The movie isn't about him at all. It's about his daughter, Maggie.
Maggie is thirty years old, strong-willed, knows what she wants and gets every bit of it. She wants to run the shoe shop (she's an awesome businesswoman) and she wants to be married to Will Mossop (a timid employee that she can see has a lot of potential) and she wants her father to respect them both and treat them well. Secondarily, she wants her sisters to be able to marry the men they are in love with (which they can't/won't do, unless their father pays their dowries, which he's too cheap to do). And she gets everything she wants in the end. It's her choices that drive the story, not her father's. Henry Hobson is a blowhard, a verbally abusive alcoholic who spends most of his time at the pub while his daughters and employees do all the work. He wants to marry his daughters off, then changes his mind when he realizes he'd have to pay "settlements" for them, but that's not what starts the plot going. I mean, it's what most people thing starts the plot off, but actually it doesn't change anything. He wasn't letting them court before, and he's still not letting them court, and nothing around the shop changes. What starts the ball rolling is Maggie deciding she's had enough and she's not going to take it anymore, and she's going to marry Will Mossop and her father's going to treat them right. When he won't, she takes Will off and they start their own shop, which soon becomes a success, and she manages to manipulate her father into giving her sisters their settlements so they can marry the men they want to. And then the final denoument is when Henry's alcoholism develops to such a point that he can't take care of himself, and Maggie and Will take over his shop--but on their terms. Henry gets to keep his name over the door, and that's it, and he has to treat Maggie and Will with respect.
Through it all, Maggie is the one who makes all the decisions and does most of the work. It's all about her wishes, her skills, her plans. She's the protagonist of the story. Sure, there are a lot of scenes with Henry out with his drinking buddies, but they're all largely the same, and none of them really enhance the plot or anything because nothing happens. Henry doesn't advance the plot. He's not the protagonist; he's the obstacle the protagonist faces. Despite the fact that he's played by the star (Charles Laughton) and the movie spends so much time on him, it is, fundamentally, not his story.
Most places that give a synopsis of the film say something similar. Promotional materials for the movie (and the play it's based off of) focus on Henry Hobson. And they are all WRONG. The movie isn't about him at all. It's about his daughter, Maggie.
Maggie is thirty years old, strong-willed, knows what she wants and gets every bit of it. She wants to run the shoe shop (she's an awesome businesswoman) and she wants to be married to Will Mossop (a timid employee that she can see has a lot of potential) and she wants her father to respect them both and treat them well. Secondarily, she wants her sisters to be able to marry the men they are in love with (which they can't/won't do, unless their father pays their dowries, which he's too cheap to do). And she gets everything she wants in the end. It's her choices that drive the story, not her father's. Henry Hobson is a blowhard, a verbally abusive alcoholic who spends most of his time at the pub while his daughters and employees do all the work. He wants to marry his daughters off, then changes his mind when he realizes he'd have to pay "settlements" for them, but that's not what starts the plot going. I mean, it's what most people thing starts the plot off, but actually it doesn't change anything. He wasn't letting them court before, and he's still not letting them court, and nothing around the shop changes. What starts the ball rolling is Maggie deciding she's had enough and she's not going to take it anymore, and she's going to marry Will Mossop and her father's going to treat them right. When he won't, she takes Will off and they start their own shop, which soon becomes a success, and she manages to manipulate her father into giving her sisters their settlements so they can marry the men they want to. And then the final denoument is when Henry's alcoholism develops to such a point that he can't take care of himself, and Maggie and Will take over his shop--but on their terms. Henry gets to keep his name over the door, and that's it, and he has to treat Maggie and Will with respect.
Through it all, Maggie is the one who makes all the decisions and does most of the work. It's all about her wishes, her skills, her plans. She's the protagonist of the story. Sure, there are a lot of scenes with Henry out with his drinking buddies, but they're all largely the same, and none of them really enhance the plot or anything because nothing happens. Henry doesn't advance the plot. He's not the protagonist; he's the obstacle the protagonist faces. Despite the fact that he's played by the star (Charles Laughton) and the movie spends so much time on him, it is, fundamentally, not his story.