In Make Way for Tomorrow (a 1937 depression-era film directed by Leo McCarey), an elderly couple (Victor Moore and Beulah Bondi) are forced to separate when they lose their house and none of their five children will take both parents in. None of their children (or their spouses) want either of them, but some suffer the respective, separated parent grudgingly. At 70, the mother is mentally and spiritually lively, somewhat more hardy than her mate. She sits with knees too wide apart, wears clumsy socks and shoes like coconuts, After a lifetime together, the two are deeply bonded. All they have is each other. We keep hoping that things will go well for them, and the movie gives absolutely no clue how it will end. Finally, they do reunite…for a few hours, and kind strangers give them the time of their lives before he boards the train for California and the daughter who is his last refuge. In a surreal way their world is unraveling while beautiful things are happening. Bittersweet is the glitter of the hotel—they honeymooned there 50 years earlier--where they have been feted by kind hosts as a courtesy. The contrast between the powerfully glamorous and bereavement is heartbreaking—like when a big, powerful train chugs out of Grand Central, with large glass windows through which two helpless old people see each other for the last time.

The King's Speech, 2010

King George IV (played by Colin Firth) was the great monarchal counterpoint to Churchill in mustering up the courage of the British to fight the fearsome Nazis during WWII. He had to overcome a debilitating stammer that would otherwise have crushed his effectiveness, and only the iconoclastic and fearless Lionel Louge (Geoffery Rush), a speech therapist, could help him do that.The King's Speech is double entendre. It is about his speech issues, but also about A speech. The great bulk of the movie is about the king's character, historical circumstances, the struggle against unhelpful customs, the struggle to faithfully discharge the duties that threaten to and unexpectedly do fall to him. Logue weaves together all the facets of the king’s life into a complex and subtle tapestry, that he actually conducts as would an orchestra leader. The film does not glorify George or the British, but shows how, in the end, they transcend their flaws and rise to an epic challenge.