Don't listen to the negative reviews

Absolutely brilliant

The film creates a perfect balance between action and depth of basic needs, in the midst of an infertile atmosphere.

There is, somehow, an interesting story here, as well as some good acting. There are also some good scenes

When the Wind Blows is one of those films that keeps on haunting you long after the end credits have stopped rolling.It focuses on an elderly couple preparing for and enduring a nuclear attack on great Britain. Both are endearing in their love for each other, and their naive trust that all will be well if they prepare well. Sadly for them, none of the precautions they take protect them from nuclear fall-out. The point of the couple being naive was to emphasize how ludicrous and futile the advise the government offered to its citizens on how to react to a nuclear blast was. The movie rips all the advise given in the brochures and public information films to shreds by showing a couple who did their best to follow all the prescriptions to the letter, and proving that none of the advise they were given is of any use to them.The writer cleverly chose as his main characters an elderly couple who have survived WW2. It gives him the opportunity to hammer home to the audience that a nuclear war is not going to be even remotely comparable to the hardships of WW2. A lot of people used to say to each other that a nuclear war wouldn't be so bad as the doom-sayers predicted. After all we already survived 2 world wars. Sure many people would die, but most would survive and carry on regardless. Apart from the obvious political messages the movie has, its just a heartbreaking tale about a couple coping with the aftermath of a disaster. Although they bicker like old couples do, it's their love for each other that gets them through the day. They seem like a good team. He's more aware of the reality of the world outside, she's a practical thinker. When he sometimes gets a bit carried away with his memories of world war 2, she gently corrects him. When she panics, or worries about unimportant things like getting the laundry inside before the bomb falls, he protects her by preventing her from doing anything stupid. In the end their love is as strong as ever, which is very moving.This movie in part was intended to give people who were too complacent a wake-up call. I remember seeing it when I was only thirteen thinking I was in for a nice animation film. It shook me up alright. Now I'm older, I see the subtler points of the movie, and it still gives me chills.The opening sequence of the film consisting of news footage doesn't fit in very well with the rest, which is a pity. Personally I would have chosen to let the movie start with the man reading the papers in the library. Other than that, I think the movie made very few mistakes, and the animation styles changing over from sketchy and dreamy sequences, conventional drawn animations, and stop motion techniques work together nicely. As it is it stands out as a great achievement in serious animated movie-history.

Plot: An elderly couple, living in rural England, survive the detonation of a nuclear weapon by stubbornly, loyally, and naively following government-issued pamphlets and publications. While they survive the initial blast, it takes its toll on the lovely married couple, with devastating results.Acting: The acting is phenomenal! It's no wonder that the two lead voice-over actors are so well known and renowned in the U.K.! Their performances grant the appearance of being anyone's grandparents, which leads directly to the sadness of the film.Special Effects/Animation: The mix of stop-motion animation, live-action stock-footage, and standard animation, lend a sort of "childish" cinematography to the proceedings; not that I wish to imply that the quality of the cinematography is poor. Rather, it appears to be just like any other Saturday-morning cartoon from the 1980s. This further adds to the despair and hopelessness of the characters, as radiation-poisoning takes its inevitable toll.Overall: This film is, by and large, one of the most haunting, depressing--yet undeniably effective--"post-nuclear" fiction movies ever made. It is my belief that this film should be shown at every middle school, high school, and college on the face of this Earth, if only at least for the phenomenal animation that it contains. The sadness caused by the film (and by the knowledge that the elderly couple really never had a chance) has truly made quite an impression on me! Certainly, this "Wind" does not blow (if you get my drift): I give it a 10 out of 10!

I first rented this on VHS in the 1980s when I read a review of it in The New York Times. It shook me to the core, to the point that once I acquired a multi-region DVD player, I knew I had to own this film. As others have said here, it's the quiet, ordinary domesticity of Jim and Hilda that makes this so affecting. They are OAPs who lived during the second World War and even have fond memories of it in hindsight. But despite the governmental leaflets that Jim tries to follow to the letter "because it's the correct thing", they are completely unprepared for the outcome of this nuclear-age war. Rightly so. Even armed with all the best information, who among us could really conceive of a world gone this mad? Jim is the man of the house. It's his job to prepare for the coming nuclear strike and to keep their attitudes as positive as possible. Whether he's really naive or tells Hilda a lot of platitudes on purpose is debatable -- I think it's a touch of both. Hilda, for her part, is the typical British housewife whose main instinct is to keep the house tidy and make cups of tea. After the blast, all she wants to do is clean up. As their lives begin to spiral down, this becomes more and more bizarre. It's probably not a spoiler but the end is as expected.Are they the last people left alive in the world? It's unknown. More likely, they're struggling through their last days just as many others are in other isolated areas, still waiting for the milk to be delivered, still hoping the papers will come. Overall, it's a chilling, stunning film you won't soon forget.

I don't know when to start praising the gem that is When the Wind Blows. It is absolutely wonderful in every aspect, in the characters, in the dialogue, in the story, in the animation, everything. Raymond Brigg's(The Snowman, Father Christmas and The Bear) book is very chilling, and as well as being well adapted, the story to When the Wind Blows is superbly told. Not only that it is heart-breaking and disturbing especially in the final fifteen minutes. The animation is beautifully done and quaint and begs the question "it can't happen here, could it?", and the music is very haunting, and David Bowie's title song compliments the film perfectly. The dialogue is moving, clever and intelligent, the pacing and direction are right on the money and the characters Jim and Hilda are sweet and wonderfully voiced by John Mills and Peggy Ashcroft. Then there is the fact that few of us knew how to conduct ourselves should there be a nuclear winter, which is powerfully brought to home. All in all, poignant and clever and definitely a must see, also deserves to be better known. 10/10 Bethany Cox