I consider this film to be a masterpiece for several reasons: the performances, the direction (Kazan's first film!), the screenplay which depicts with great insight the triangular relationship of a charismatic but dysfunctional alcoholic with his favorite daughter and his increasingly estranged wife. But I go back to the film again and again because of its cathartic effect on me. It never fails to elicit a level of crying that no other film does. Obviously I am touched in some personal way by the situations, but the one time I saw this film in a theatre, it wasn't just me: there was a whole lotta weepin goin on! The last forty minutes of the film contain one emotional blow out after another. By the end, one is literally exhausted from the crying. And as I recall, Kazan does it without the use of music to enhance these scenes' effects.
Review of A Tree Grows in Brooklyn
