Review of You Can't Take It with You (1938) by Jordan P — 01 Dec 2018

The rhetoric of this film is a little scattered to the winds. What I mean is that it is definitely well-meaning, but some of the advice given by the film is not practical. The whole main house does whatever they want to do and they live in a nicely furnished house with very little to want for.

In real life, the tortured artist is a reality, you go broke following a passion without a Medici backing you up. As Mike Rowe would say, bring your passion where you go, rather than blindly following it, though no one would go amiss using their spare time for amusement and following dreams.

It is true however, as the film says, that blindly trying to cut out the feet from all competitors, thinking you are better than everyone else because of your financial station, and solving all of your troubles with money will leave you friendless and with nothing at the grave.

A happy medium would probably be better taken, or using the funds of the wealthy to, as a Medici, fund innovation and efforts to help the less fortunate. I love Jean Arthur and Jimmy Stewart and the whole rest of the cast (who can almost universally be found in It's a Wonderful Life, barring Arthur), but instead of hitting a note of inspiration, the film tries too hard to placate the dreams and notions of actors and artists and inventors.

These are not bad people of course, but their kind of work leaves plenty of empty mouths when they don't go anywhere, and there are many working in Hollywood fast food right now trying to make it into the movies that never will.

As the character Kolenkhov noted, he got paid and fed by teaching Essie how to dance, but frankly, she stinks and will never get anywhere. Often I feel this is the route of the college, fill the heads of students that they have talent, and so we feed and pay university teachers and deans, but really they know deep down that unless we win a life lottery, our degrees are worthless.

I thought the film itself didn't drag and was fun, but by taking such a contrasted liberal view, they, as the character Kirby Sr. related, used emotional arguments that fell flat against the logic of reality.