MovieChat Forums > Goodbye, Mr. Chips (1939) Discussion > My issue with the Greer Garson character

My issue with the Greer Garson character

posted 13 years ago by Cali7
6 replies | jump to latest

I recently watched this film for the first time. I enjoyed Robert Donat's performance, but something about Greer Garson irked me. After thinking a bit about it, I realized I wasn't as much annoyed with Greer herself as I was with the character she was playing. Perhaps this is the fault of the screenwriters or the novel itself (I haven't read Hilton's book, so I wouldn't know), but Garson's character seems TOO perfect, too flawless, too one-dimensional. I'm not saying there's anything wrong with being both beautiful and kind, I'm just saying it's a bit unrealistic and I would have preferred more dimension and depth from the character.

Still, don't get me wrong, i enjoyed the movie and I thought Donat was very endearing.

[–] taylorje 13 years ago

Read the book if you get a chance, it's very short. Kathie in the book is about 25; Garson is much older and this may have put you off the character.

[–] marktayloruk (2374) 2 years ago

Not that much surely?

[–] joystar5879 12 years ago

I always felt that we were seeing Kathie as CHIPS saw her...through CHIPS' eyes. To a painfully shy, middle aged man like Mr. Chipping...a relaxed and socially comfortable woman like Katherine Ellis would seem positively dazzling.

"I do hope he won't upset Henry..."

[–] IloveMuggy 11 years ago

I didn't see her as perfect at all--she just saw something in Chips that no one else had bothered to see, except Paul Henreid. And she had the courage to act on her feelings, and marry a man everyone else would see as below her effervescent self. She admitted to being "terrified" at meeting his colleagues--she knew she was taking on a handful with Mr. Chips, and she willingly did so out of pure love.

[–] PussyCrusher_Principal 8 years ago

I think joystar is onto something...I don't necessarily think this was a conscious device by the storytellers to make Kathy as seen through Chips' eyes, but she is one of a very few females with speaking parts in the film, and as such there is a very Male POV, and with Kathy's outer beauty making the first impression (all of Chips' colleagues are just enchanted by her, reversing expectations to the contrary), she is seen as angelic, her basic goodness amplified in the minds of the (nearly exclusively) male characters. This is compounded by the fact that we only know Kathy as an adjunct to Chips and HIS life. To us she is 100% selfless, literally.

[–] Prismark10 8 years ago

Her character was a breath of fresh air given the stuffy all male environment of that school. Maybe she was too angelic but that was to enhance the tragedy.

It's that man again!!