Buy The Rich Are Always With Us
This film is essentially the story of a love triangle between Ruth Chatterton, George Brent and Bette Davis, all socialites of a fashion. The thing that kind of differentiates this love triangle is that they all like each other, even the competing Chatterton and Davis. They’re all quite good in the film. Chatterton was an icon at the time, but I hadn’t seen her in anything and I was surprised to find that she has an interesting comic touch that got a couple of big laughs out of me. Adrienne Dore is particularly good as the mistress of Chatterton’s husband; she starts off as a kind of joke character, the ditzy blonde, but by the end, her character’s gone super dark and her final scene is actually really disturbing. Bette Davis is really good; she has great chemistry with Brent. There’s a scene where she visits him in his apartment that really just crackles with energy and fun. I think, above all, I’d go with that as a good descriptor for this movie. It certainly has dramatic elements, but it’s just a real pleasure to watch and a lot of the comic moments really land. The relationship between Chatterton and Brent may end up grating on some people, it’s so incredibly “on-again/off-again” but I liked it. Anyway, I really enjoyed this movie. It’s not trying to change the world and some parts are silly, but it’s an enjoyable diversion. 3 ½ stars.
tl;dr – love triangle among likable socialites anchor this well-performed, surprisingly funny movie; light, fluffy and very entertaining. 3 ½ stars.