Week 15: The Yearling

It's been a busy week at OP for non-OP related things. This week, let's talk about a weird little movie called The Yearling, nominated for Best Picture in 1946. The Yearling, based on the book of the same name, is about a family in late-19th-century Florida. It's also about a deer. A "yearling" is a deer.

This deer is named Flag, and it's the Old Yeller of deer, I guess.

The deer is named "Flag" because of his white tail. As a fawn, Flag earns the good graces of Greg Peck and his son because its mother helped save Greg's life. We meet Flag pretty deep into the movie, which is odd. After being bitten by a snake, Greg shoots a doe and instructs his son to cut out its heart and bring him the heart. This helps counteract the snakebite, somehow. This is very interesting. Greg survives the snake attack, and the fawn comes home to live with the family at their farm.

Flag is a pain in the ass. Flag keeps eating the family's crops. They build a fence around the crops to try and keep him out, and Flag very easily clears this fence and eats the crops again. Greg Peck's movie son is instructed to take Flag into the woods and shoot him. He cannot do it.

It is difficult for me to identify with a character who so loves a deer that he is unable to kill it, even when said deer is unequivocally detrimental to the family's survival. A deer provides tasty venison, and a dead deer does not eat your crops.

Greg Peck looks into the dead eyes of his cervine co-star

The saving grace of this movie is Greg Peck, who delivers dialogue like he usually does: commandingly but with a wry twist. Even though the dialogue is meant to be spoken in a deep, Southern accent, Peck does not really alter his delivery. He's believable as a father who will bend over backwards to preserve the innocence of his son's youth for as long as possible. What's not believable is the kid who plays his son. He's a little too Little Lord Fauntleroy to credibly be Peck's son, and also resembles him in zero ways.

I give The Yearling a 5.5. The BP winner in 1946 was The Best Years of Our Lives, clearly a better choice.