Of Human Bondage

John Cromwell, 1934

'Of Human Bondage' is a film that examines the struggles, relationships, and personal growth of a soft-spoken, mannerly medical student, Phillip Carey (played by Leslie Howard). Phillip originally sets out to be an artist in Paris, but after being told by an experienced artist that Phillip is no real talent ("You'll never be anything but mediocre. Make something of your life..."), Phillip decides to switch professions and become a doctor. The idea of studiously avoiding mediocrity becomes an abiding personality trait in Phillip, who does not like to do (or love) anything halfheartedly. He meets a waitress in a cafe, the stubborn, sassy but vulnerable Mildred (played by Bette Davis). After some convincing, Carey begins a dating relationship with Mildred, marked by longing adoration on his part and seeming indifference on her end. (As they ride home in a taxi one night, she says she "doesn't mind" going on another date with him, and that if he doesn't take her out, "someone else will.") Carey perseveres in his wooing, and his dreams are full of fantasies of Mildred reciprocating his romantic overtures. Carey finds it difficult to concentrate during the day, and sees Mildred's image everywhere. His distraction causes him to struggle with his studies in medical school, and he barely graduates.

         Eventually, however, Mildred chooses the route of security over love -- she marries Mr. Miller, a wealthy (and much older) patron of the cafe where she works. Carey is devastated. He walks about in a stupor for a few days, and although her image is still locked into his heart, chooses to let her go. Carey rekindles a friendship with a kindly novelist, Norah Nesbit, and their friendship turns to romance, although it's a restrained, congenial one. Their quiet lives are disrupted by the reappearance of Mildred -- she is pregnant, abandoned by Mr Miller, and in trouble. Carey, still harboring romantic feelings for her, gives her some money and tells her to get a place to live. He later admits to Norah that there is "another person" that truly owns his heart, and parts ways with her.

       Carey aims to rekindle his romance with Mildred, but she is still her same flippant, noncommittal self, and she soon falls in love with a friend of Carey's. That's the last straw for the poor man; Carey finally loses all respect for her and looks at her differently from that point forward. Mildred's increasingly erratic behavior drives her deeper into confusion and poverty. Eventually she resorts to prostitution for support (although her profession is only subtly implied in the film). Out of pity Carey allows Mildred and the baby to room with him, but Mildred angrily ransacks the apartment and storms out after she and Carey argue. Mildred comes to a miserable end -- we see officers carelessly lifting her haggard form (is she suffering from an STD?) onto a stretcher, and she dies in the hospital where Carey works. 

    With Mildred's death, Carey feels finally free. He comes to a rather conventionally happy end when he proposes to a solid, respectable, middle-class girl, a daughter of a patient whom Carey has become close to. The film ends with Carey helping his new fiancé step into a taxi... and they'll go off to live, presumably, happily ever after.

Kelly Boutross