"Make Way for Tomorrow," Leo McCarey's quiet tragedy about an elderly couple who are left with few choices when their adult children are reluctant to take care of them, is one of those films that grows in stature the more you think about it.
On one hand, it's a bit heavy handed and simplistic in the way 1930s films frequently were and which makes them seem dated now -- the parents are a bit too saintly, the children a bit too awful. As a study of characters, the film would have been more interesting if it had provided some insight into why the children turned out the way they did and what role the parents played in shaping them into the selfish adults they become. The children would have been more interesting if they had been portrayed more humanely; Thomas Mitchell, as the oldest son, is the only one who comes across as something other than a selfish horror.
But the film is more interested in examining a social topic than it is in exploring characters, and in that way it feels ahead of its time, even if its sophistication doesn't fully sink in until after you've had some time to think about the movie. For a 1937 film, it's extremely unsentimental when it might have been downright maudlin. The parents move about with a resigned air, and the film doesn't pander for sympathy. As one of the extra features on the DVD points out, audiences aren't interested in movies about old people even now, let alone then. And we haven't gotten much better at the way we view and treat the elderly in the 70+ years since "Make Way for Tomorrow" debuted. One of the things I liked best about the movie -- and that makes it still incredibly relevant -- is that it shows how dismissive younger generations are about older people, and how children seem to think their parents don't have lives outside of them. As portrayed brilliantly by Beulah Bondi and Victor Moore in the film, these two doddery folk have a rich history together; they had a life before children and they have a life after; they have things to teach, wisdom to impart, and they're very sharp and astute about what's going on around them. One of the biggest tragedies in the film is something that goes almost unspoken, and that's the disappointment they feel in their children but won't let their children see.
The final sequence of the movie is downright magical, when Bondi and Moore blow off their children to revisit the haunts of their honeymoon. It's funny, sad and almost unbearably poignant without being schmaltzy, thanks partly to the low-key direction of Leo McCarey but mostly to the wonderful performances of the two actors.
A lovely film.
Grade: A
