ScoobyWell Great visuals, story delivers no surprises

Ogosmith Each character in this movie — down to the smallest one — is an individual rather than a type, prone to spontaneous changes of mood and sometimes amusing outbursts of pettiness or ill humor.

Hayleigh Joseph This is ultimately a movie about the very bad things that can happen when we don't address our unease, when we just try to brush it off, whether that's to fit in or to preserve our self-image.

Ella-May O'Brien Each character in this movie — down to the smallest one — is an individual rather than a type, prone to spontaneous changes of mood and sometimes amusing outbursts of pettiness or ill humor.

elvircorhodzic YOU CAN'T TAKE IT WITH YOU The film is a romantic comedy that at times treated very serious topic. The rich snobs against wacky, eccentric but, it seems to me very nice people. Conflict of family, property and way of thinking. Meeting of two different social categories shaken "most beautiful" thing in the world - love. My impression is that most Capra's protagonist finds happiness in small things. Of course, there must be a difference between a good and successful man. These little things may act strange, but certainly not negligible. Source of happiness and satisfaction is at hand, only it needs to be open.Martin "Grandpa" Vanderhof's (Lionel Barrymore) house is the film's utopian space. All are happy and satisfied, somewhat eccentric and definitely crazy. Of course, everyone is doing only what they want. Penny Sycamore (Spring Byington), Vanderhof's daughter, writes plays because a typewriter was accidentally sent to the house eight years ago. Her daughter, Essie Carmichael (Ann Miller), practices dance even though she exhibits no talent for it. Ed Carmichael (Dub Taylor), Essie's husband, plays xylophone in order to accompany her dancing. The house in which all are welcome. The basement is the right valley of creativity.Important segments of the story are the government and capital. One individual resists both. Grandpa Martin Vanderhof is incredibly calm and positive character and he "protest" in a specific way. You Can't Take It With You also subtly links class with gender. Alice Sycamore (Jean Arthur), of the lower middle-class, is engaged to Tony Kirby (James Stewart), son of millionaire. This proportion is slightly idealized. How important vision is? The vision is temporary? At different moments of most of the characters accept the truth in this or that way. For this reason I do not like the idyllic ending of the film. I convinced myself that this is a romantic comedy.Capra has again been very careful with cinematography, framing and dialogue. Acting is at a high level. Of course Lionel Barrymore is masterly. The film is a good way out of the dark for two hours. It's very funny.

drmalama Here's the thing about eccentrics: They're not the best people to look to for a coherent ideology.So it is with the Vanderhoffs and Sycamores, a clan of crazy, loving, and lovable people who have decided to exit the rat race and follow their wandering muses... and boy, do they wander! Grandpa spends his days playing his harmonica and attending the graduation ceremonies of people he doesn't know. His daughter, Penny, decided to become the next George Bernard Shaw after someone dropped a typewriter at the home by mistake. Granddaughter Essie dances very, very badly, and her sister Alice, rebelling against her family of rebels, decides to become a banker's secretary (she still finds time to slide down banisters, though). Grandpa, it should be known, hasn't paid his taxes, well, ever, and his defense of this fact to the rather dunderheaded IRS agent who comes a'calling has been lauded by Tea Party types and abhorred by modern- day liberals as a polemic in favor of bathtub-sized government. Yet it should be noted that another resident of the house is on government relief and Grandpa seems totally fine with that. He may have thought through his rejection of soulless corporate America, but that doesn't mean he's right or consistent about everything. SPOILER AHEADWhat's more, for all his praise of the virtues of friendship over money, he actually betrays his friends pretty epically when he agrees to sell the house to a company trying to take over his neighborhood. While he does this in order to move closer to Alice, it nearly gets all his neighbors evicted. Not very friendly, right?END SPOILERDoes all this mean that Grandpa is a bad person? No. Is he a questionable role model? Yes, and Frank Capra's attempt to make him a populist hero doesn't quite work. But you should watch and enjoy the hell out of You Can't Take It With You--it's touching, hilarious, and does contain genuine insights on how to live a good life. But don't go to it for a ready- to-serve political belief system. Go for the wish fulfillment: the chance to imagine doing exactly what you want with your life without fear of failure or poverty. I've got a good idea about what I'd do (drawing, acting, college classes on film appreciation, etc.), and I suspect you do too.

disinterested_spectator Though Frank Capra movies are typically classified as comedies, yet they really are not that funny. One reason is that they come across as homilies, and as there is nothing humorous about moralizing, there is an inconsistent tone throughout. Worse yet, the moral of his movies tends to be so simplistic as to have no practical value. Some of his movies are better than others, of course. But notwithstanding the fact that it got the Academy Award for Best Picture, this is not one of them.The message in this movie in particular is that everyone ought to just do whatever he wants to do. Well, I don't know about you, but if I did what I wanted to do, no one would pay me for it. I like watching movies and writing reviews like this, and if someone wants to pay me to do so, I'll be happy to take his money. But until I retired (and could finally do what I wanted), I spent thirty-five years holding down a job that wasn't much fun. It wasn't a bad job, as jobs go, but it was not what I wanted to do, which was mostly just take it easy and have a good time.The movie centers on a family that embodies this principle of doing whatever you want to do. Grandpa Vanderhof supposedly collects stamps and is able to make money off his expertise, even though it is not clear how. His daughter writes plays, though we doubt she publishes them. His son-in-law and another man fool around with firecrackers in the basement, supposedly selling them from time to time. One of his granddaughters, Essie, takes ballet lessons, so she represents an expense rather than providing an income. And so it goes. There is only one person in the household, Essie's sister Alice, who holds down a real job, as a secretary, which would seem to violate the principle of doing whatever you want to do; but in any event, her income could hardly support the rest of the household. I suppose I should mention they have a full-time maid, who also is their cook, and they live in a house worth $25,000 in 1938 dollars, which adjusted for inflation would be over $400,000 today (at one point they are offered $100,000 for the house, or about $1,670,000, adjusted for inflation).Doing what you want apparently includes not paying your income taxes. When an Internal Revenue Agent shows up to talk to Grandpa Vanderhof because he never files income tax returns, he says he doesn't believe in paying taxes because he doesn't care for the things the money is spent on. This completely confounds the IRS agent, as if the agency had never had to deal with that attitude before. When warned by Alice's fiancé, Tony Kirby, that he might get in trouble, Grandpa says he really doesn't owe the IRS any money. I guess that stamp-collecting expertise hasn't been all that remunerative after all.By now you may be thinking that I have missed the whole point, that this is just a comedy. Well, that brings us back to my original point. The movie just is not that funny. And because it is not very funny, I had time to reflect upon the sermon being preached by this movie, which I concluded was absurd for the reasons just given.The ridiculous moral lesson of this movie is not the only thing that works against the intended humor. The movie is more manic than funny. We are supposed to be delighted by this crazy household, when in reality, none of us could stand being in that living room for more than a few minutes. You would not have to be a stuffed shirt like Tony's father or a snob like Tony's mother to be appalled that your son wanted to marry into a family like that.

SnoopyStyle Greedy Anthony P. Kirby (Edward Arnold) is trying to monopolize the weapons industry by buying up the land surrounding a competitor. Grandpa Vanderhof (Lionel Barrymore) is holding out. He doesn't care about money and refuses to sell his home. Unbeknownst to everybody involved, Kirby's son Tony (James Stewart) is in love with stenographer Alice Sycamore (Jean Arthur), the granddaughter. He proposes to her and they bring her eccentric family together with his stuffy family.I don't find the Vanderhof family that much fun. They're trying too hard. It's another time and my sense of humor doesn't fit. The movie works best with Stewart and Arthur but at times, they seem to be the side show. The basic structure is there. I guess it's always been there. It's a fine Capra movie but it just doesn't strike me as that funny.