Have you ever watched a film where one of the main characters was just too dumb to be believable? Sure, in a comedy such as "Talladega Nights" you expect this...but not in a drama like "Because of You"!
When the story begins, Christine (Loretta Young) is engaged to a sleazy man. When he gets arrested, she is arrested as well...though she is innocent. Regardless, she's sent to prison. While inside, she is trained as a nurse's assistant and upon release, she gets a job at a hospital...all the while on parole.
During the course of her duties, she falls in love with a wounded vet who is suffering from depression and post-traumatic stress disorder. He is a swell guy but emotionally fragile...and she doesn't tell him about her past. She also agrees to marry him...but does so in Mexico so her parole officer doesn't know.
Years pass and she's been off parole most of this time. Her life is great and her new husband, Steve (Jeff Chandler), is not just a nice guy but is quite rich. However, when her old scummy boyfriend returns, her life is suddenly in chaos....and, once again, Christine says and does the wrong thing. This is a HUGE problem in the picture...as again and again, Christine make terrible choices...and dumb ones at that. So many that I found her character annoying and it detracted from the movie. And, believe it or not, there is STILL a lot more to the film after all this.
While I was not impressed with Young's performance (she was WAY too passive to be believable), Chandler's performance, especially when he learned the truth, was amazingly good. I also though the film went on too long...as the big confrontation scene between the couple occurred too early...and the impact of this seemed muted because of this.
