I have always enjoyed the film,
Hope and Glory, for it very much captures the spirit of the WW2 British Homefront the way I remember it. In some ways the experiences of the young boy featured in the film are eerily similar to my own (although he is depicted as living in the London). He appears to be about the same age I was when the war started and his middle class background, the house he lived in and his attitudes & outlook on life were very similar to mine.
Another coincidental similarity is his learning how to bowl cricket "googlies" (his father teaches him in the film) -- I taught myself by bowling at a clothesline post in our back garden. My great sports passion was (and still is) cricket. I was a poor batsman and fielder, but I developed into a pretty good leg break bowler -- although I got into the habit of turning my wrist too far over when bowling my googly which resulted in an occasional top spinner -- still a good delivery but lacking the subterfuge of a googly! Sorry for the digression, but I don't get many opportunities to write about cricket these days! There is much made about googly bowling in the film -- of course I really enjoyed those scenes!
There are some nice authentic touches of nostalgia in the film -- some highlights for me: The great introductory music - "In the mood"; the depiction of the impact of Sunday, 3 September, 1939 (war outbreak day) on a typical British family (I was returning home from Sunday school when I found out that war had been declared -- from the signalman at the level crossing at Towneley station); putting the car up on blocks for the duration (my father did that with our Standard); installing an Anderson shelter in the back garden; evacuation of children scenes; taking shelter under the stairs during air raid alerts (I used to do that at my auntie Clara's house); harvesting shrapnel after an air raid; gas mask drill in the school air raid shelter; the boy drawing eye brow pencil seams down the back of the (tinted) legs of his sister to simulate silk/nylon stockings (I used to do that for one of my cousins); some great jitterbugging; the wartime Christmas party which was very similar to the ones we used to have at our house; the beautiful music throughout the film (a little Mozart and including a take-off of the legendary Myra Hess lunchtime piano recitals) and a nice touch in concluding the film with "Land of Hope and Glory".
To me, some of the Air Raid and family crisis scenes are a little over dramatized -- but this, after all, is a movie and other people in real life may have had experiences very similar to the ones depicted in the film. We didn't have martinet school teachers as depicted although some of mine were "Victorian severe"; Our school was not bombed; My own grandfather Pickering was a far better sport than the grandfather in the film (although he was quite a character); the main boy character does not seem to age as the war progresses in the film; the kids in the Saturday morning movie matinee (Mickey Mouse club?) scene were wilder than we were ever allowed to be -- but not a whole lot.
Overall, though, a pretty faithful depiction of life on the British Homefront in WW2 -- and, IMHO, a very good film!