Absent Without Leave

The total lack of originality in the title was an omen of what the film was like. The movie was uninspired, unoriginal and full of every World War II cliche. My thoughts as I watched the film was that this looked like a made-for-TV historical drama, but maybe I am being unfair on TV movies.

The story was set in NZ in 1942 and was effective in its portrayal of Kiwis and NZ society at that time. But it was the cliches that was too much for me. I will give just two examples of this.

The soldier goes absent without leave so that he could escort his wife from Wellington to Auckland. Why she couldn't get on a train and go on her own was unclear. At the train station he drops his suitcase and it bursts open, revealing his military uniform. This of course happens all the time, you are always seeing people in train stations and airports all over the world dropping their suitcases and having them burst open. After the soldier gathers everything together, a voice calls out 'Hey you, stop' and somehow I just knew that the soldier had dropped something and it was being returned, which was the case.

Later the couple were working on a farm, helping with the harvest. As one does when one is urgently trying to get to Auckland so that the soldier can return to the army. Then a warplane flew overhead. There appears to be a law of nature that when a warplane is flying over friendly territory and there is a camera below, the engine will fail and the plane will crash. And of course that is what happened here.

The film truly was 'absent without leave', but what was absent was an originality.