Make Way for Tomorrow (1937)

(On Cable TV, December 2020) Some incredible movies should come with a warning, and Make Way for Tomorrow is a tragic tearjerker in sheep’s clothing. The setup looks as if it’s setting up a comforting watch, as a fifty-year-long couple is forced by economics to live apart “for a while”: They have five children, but none are able to accommodate them both. As time passes, the two elderly parents’ efforts to get back together are fruitless, and their children are of absolutely no help. But if you’re waiting for everyone to figure out a solution, for the cavalry to arrive, for the Hollywood happy ending to wrap it up, here is your last and most essential warning: This is not going to turn out well. Director Leo McCarey (often better known for comedies!) is merciless in hammering the script’s message for 92 almost unbearable minutes. If you really want to be clinical about it, this isn’t much of a film for a narrative standpoint: there is no reversal of fortune, there is no improvement, there are no twists: it just keeps getting worse every single minute. But the most tragic thing about Make Way for Tomorrow (what a title!) is not what specifically happens to the characters – it’s the cold certainty, rarely expressed in cinema, that we don’t usually get happy endings in real life. Unlike film, the camera doesn’t cut away to the ending credits: people keep on living, degrading, becoming increasingly isolated and that is the natural order of things.