Poor film,anachronistic in the extreme with one dimensional characters,I mean the bad recruiting officer is fat and non Canadian,what a pathetic way to try to earn the subsidies.
And the walking in on his love when back in France just sums it up for how absurd it is.

I went to see this in the theaters to support Canadian film, and also because I like Paul Gross (he of Due South and Men With Brooms fame). I’m very particular about the war genre: I don’t like war movies that glorify war, make it seem like something you should want to do. I think that war movies should make combat seem brutal, harsh, and gritty. That’s not to say that soldiers can’t be noble, romantic, or people you would want to emulate, but I don’t think that war should seem to be romantic or, even worse, fun. (Others might agree with me, but that’s a whole different conversation.)

Passchendaele mostly succeeds in this. The movies is basically a romance bookended by scenes of war, and for the most part, the combat is exactly what I thought it should be. Fighting in the trenches of World War I, in a torrential downpour, it seems bleak and awful. And the “back home” section can be a little too “epic romance” for my tastes, but it still works. The big problem for me was when the romance seeped into the war setting; it made it feel like an “important war movie” and it came very close to turning me right off. Part of it could have been because of Gross’s screenplay, which gets a little corny at times, but despite my feelings about this it doesn’t really ruin the movie. Besides, his direction during the action scenes and establishing shots is really strong. Casting-wise, the main characters are good, even if one or two of the supporting actors could have been stronger. In short, Passchendaele is a decent war movie that gets heavy-handed at times, but is worth a watch.