Review of Summer of My German Soldier

By reading the synopsis and other poster's comments you know just about everything in this movie so there really are no spoilers. Plus Wikipedia tells the whole story. So I'm not going there. This movie dates back to 1978 and everyone who is interested in this movie knows the entire storyline. This post is about why Polly was so unloved by her parents. In fact her father, Harry disdained her and the mother was indifferent. Yet the younger sister was deeply beloved by the parents who showered attention, love, and physical affection. This shows the complexity of human nature when it involves, love, affection, and caring for one's offspring. Psychologists and researchers have long known that parents are not always equal in how they feel and show love to their offspring. Often the individual parent cannot understand themselves why they feel more love for one child over the other. In another Hollywood movie, the father loved his eldest son, who died in a car crash, over his youngest son. I think the movie's title was, Stand By Me. In, 'The Summer Of My German Soldier', Patty learns the horrific truth from her father behind his coldness towards her. The father, Harry, related to Polly how much his late, mother-in-law disliked Harry and never wanted her daughter to marry him, even though both families are Jewish. In return, Harry despised his mother-in-law. When Polly was born and grew up, she reminded Harry of his despised, late mother-in-law. As a result, Harry felt similar emotions towards his own daughter and could not love her. Polly was the innocent victim of two people's deep animus towards each other. At the end of the movie, Harry tells Polly that she will live at their home until he is no longer legally responsible for her. That means age 18, after high school. Then Polly will have to leave home forever. Your heart really goes out to Polly. You want to hate the father, Harry, as a real bast**d, but somehow you feel a twinge of understanding for his mindset. What if the mother-in-law had liked Harry a lot? Some husbands are lucky like that. Polly's life would have been radically different.