The World of Movies: Make Way for Tomorrow
Written by Rachael Crawley
The World of Movies is a series that explores global cinema, drawing on films from many countries, industries and eras. This week, it’s the Great Depression in the United States.
May contain spoilers.
Throughout this movie, I spent a lot of time wondering what it would look like in 2021. Presumably, the grandchildren would be in endless Zoom classes, and instead of giving bridge lessons, Fay Bainter’s character would have a YouTube channel with all the best card game hacks. Modern details aside, though, the story would play out exactly the way it did in 1937. Very little would have to be adapted. Much has changed from that time, but economic uncertainty is still with us. When times are difficult, families often rearrange themselves. The transition is rarely easy.
Make Way for Tomorrow, directed by Leo McCarey, has inspired at least two other films, Tokyo Story (Yasujiro Ozu, 1953) and Baghban (Ravi Chopra, 2003). I was intrigued by the idea of a movie that can travel so well - the kind of story that translates to different time periods and countries. While this film clearly comes from the Hollywood studio system, its story and style are grounded in a rather pragmatic realism that, though unusual for its time, feels universal. It is, in essence, a very ordinary story of an ordinary family, told without many bells and whistles.
Barkley and Lucy Cooper (an excellent Victor Moore and Beulah Bondi) face foreclosure on their home, and appeal to their several grown children for help. Though one daughter can take them, she claims she needs time to convince her husband, and so the couple are separated and sent to different households. Lucy’s son George and daughter-in-law Anita (Thomas Mitchell and Fay Bainter) are trying – they genuinely want to make her feel welcome, and Lucy is glad to spend time with her granddaughter. However, despite everyone’s best intentions, friction develops. Small issues turn into huge arguments. People who started out in good faith begin to fall into frustration, a process that feels realistic.
To its credit, the movie does not let anyone off the hook. While the kids aren’t very sensitive to their parents, the parents overstep boundaries and fail to grasp the trouble they cause. Barkley’s new home, with a less-than-caring daughter and son-in-law, lacks this nuance. His daughter seems relentlessly rude, and the movie gives us little time to develop her character. At the heart of both situations, though, is the older people’s loneliness – the couple are kept apart from each other, and there is no end in sight. They continue to assure each other that they will be reunited.
Make Way for Tomorrow.
From here, the movie goes steadily downhill. The children suggest moving Barkley to California, where another daughter lives. He insists that Lucy will join him there once he is employed – Lucy, aware that she is to be sent to a retirement home, goes along with it. What follows is the movie’s loveliest and most painful sequence. Over the course of their last afternoon together, we simply spend time with this couple, learning more about their lives and their deep love for each other. They are met with acts of kindness wherever they go. After having little respect and no control over their lives for the whole movie, they suddenly have time that is entirely their own. All the while, the viewer knows what is coming, even if the characters never acknowledge it. Their perfect day cannot be spoiled. It is a beautiful series of moments.
Movies of the 30s are often characterized as being escapist, stagey, a way to avoid the problems of the day, while stylistically still holding on to the artifice of the silent era. Make Way for Tomorrow subverts this idea. The characters are normal and flawed. Their story plays out without great action or twists, but by simply observing moments of interaction. The family relationships, and the complex feelings invoked by them, make up the bulk of the film’s drama. The movie does not tack on a happy ending, or even provide a suggestion of hope. Sometimes, reality is just going to be grim.
Perhaps it is for these reasons that Make Way for Tomorrow flopped at the box office back then, but today I think it would resonate. In a reversal of the movie, last year it was estimated that 52% of American adults aged 18-29 live with their parents – a statistic higher than any time since the Great Depression. For many who have moved in with family during the pandemic, the Coopers’ difficulties could be uncomfortably familiar. Heartbreaking, yet grounded in truth, it is a movie that has left an impression across both culture and time.
Rachael Crawley holds a Master's Degree in Film and Photography Preservation and Collections Management from Ryerson University, and has worked with film in Canada and in Europe. She adores language and cinema, and how these subjects interact with each other.