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Film / Vacation from Marriage

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The awkward reunion.

Vacation from Marriage (a.k.a. Perfect Strangers) is a 1945 British romantic comedy-drama film directed by Alexander Korda, starring Robert Donat and Deborah Kerr.

Robert (Donat) and Cathy Wilson (Kerr) are two mild-mannered Londoners stuck in a loveless marriage. Impending war comes and both are changed; Robert joins the Navy and Cathy joins the Wrens (Woman’s Royal Naval Service). Both experience romantic flings and eventually dread their reunion after three years' absence.

The film was a hit on both sides of the Atlantic, striking a chord with audiences of the day who were coming back from their own war service. It also won screenwriter Clemence Dane an Academy Award for Best Writing (Original Story) in 1947.


Vacation from Marriage displays the following tropes:

  • Aw, Look! They Really Do Love Each Other: At the end of the film Cathy and Robert decide that there's enough of a spark to restart their marriage.
  • Belligerent Sexual Tension: In spades when Cathy and Robert reunite.
  • Dance of Romance: Much to Cathy’s surprise, Robert asks her to dance with him. Before the war, he wouldn’t dance (and wouldn’t allow her to dance either!).
  • Deadpan Snarker: Both Cathy and Robert liven up after their war experiences.
  • Dead Sparks: In the beginning, Cathy and Robert are just together because they’re used to each other.
  • Fire-Forged Friends: Dizzy (Glynis Johns) is tough on Cathy first, and continues to be a foil to her personality, but she and Cathy become great friends during and after the war.
  • Gilded Cage: Cathy felt like their tiny apartment was a prison for her.
  • Happy Marriage Charade: Robert and Cathy are with each other merely out of habit.
  • Happy Ending: They get back together and try to work out the kinks in their marriage.
  • Quintessential British Gentleman: Robert tried to be one before the war, hoping it will make him look older and be taken seriously. So much so, that when he reunites with Cathy, she admits that he was becoming an old maid.
  • Look What I Can Do Now!: Robert gets excited that he is no longer out of breath when he runs up the stairs to his apartment.
  • Married to the Job: Robert and his boring accounting job.
  • Mean Boss: At his job, Robert wanted a subsidy from his job for joining the navy, but he was eight weeks shy of his five years, so his boss doesn’t give him the money.
  • Naïve Newcomer: Cathy when she first joins the WRENs.
  • Stiff Upper Lip: Robert in the beginning. His hair is smoothed back, he has an old man moustache, and he’s quite the bore.
  • She Cleans Up Nicely: Cathy decides to change her look from constantly frumpy to dolled up for 1940s standards. But it is Deborah Kerr, so she looked beautiful to begin with.
  • Take This Job and Shove It: Robert vehemently refuses going back to his old accounting job.
  • The Teetotaler: Robert never touched the stuff and told Cathy to never drink either. But this changes after their war experiences.
  • Took a Level in Badass: Cathy and Robert both become stronger, better people after being in the service.
  • War Is Glorious: Robert becomes a war hero who gets accustomed to the sailor life, fights, and saves a bunch of his fellow Navy men. Cathy becomes a badass in her own right by staying cool under the line of fire while sending tactic messages. War does them both good; they both grow as people and know what they want in life.

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