Every-Night Dreams

Screenshot from the Youtube video embedded below

Every-Night Dreams is a 1933 silent film by director Mikio Naruse. It is the tragic story of a family struggling during the Depression. The woman works as a bar hostess trying to earn enough money to support her son. The estranged man of the household returns, insisting he'll get a job to support them. In the scene above, which takes place before her son's father returns, the older woman has brought the tea kettle to the younger woman's room and tries to convince the young mother to seek more respectable work for the sake of her son.

This is just an hour long and free to watch. You can't go wrong here, unless of course you prefer happier subject matter:

via Youtube:

Senses of Cinema says, "Everynight Dreams was successful not only because it created a convincing social context for the melodrama but also because it featured a very delicate performance by the silent star, Sumiko Kurishima, in the role of the heroine." Slant Magazine gives it 4 out of 4 stars.
DVD Talk calls it the "least hopeful" of Naruse's silents.

FilmRef.com says,

Mikio Naruse's elegantly distilled early silent film Every Night's Dreams provides an archetype for the filmmaker's recurring themes: pragmatic, determined women who tenaciously hold onto their failing relationships, weak men who lead a life of increasing dependence on the women they mistreat, life stations that grow baser as characters paradoxically strive to improve their situation.

I'm sure there are more hopeful posts over at Bleubeard and Elizabeth's weekly T party. Please join in the fun.