Is this movie still relevant?
How would we show this movie to a room full of teenagers and still make it relevant? After all, their parents probably weren't alive when this movie was made. Would they get it?
Never mind the teenagers, how do we show it to all the "nickel and dimed" people and make it relevant?
Who seriously believes today that anybody can just quit their job and do what makes them happy and survive? You hear rich people talking on NPR about how they did it -- and bought a little house by a lake (good God!) so they could live a "simpler life".
Remember the people in the jail who jumped on Edward Arnold's cigar? The little people that Capra is so apt at portraying? Today they're out working three or four part-time jobs and still can't make ends meet, not because they're shiftless or want too much but because wages haven't risen sufficiently to keep pace with price increases.
I'm all for following one's bliss, but the message of this picture is just not relevant in today's world except for the very rich. It wasn't really then either (as H.B. Warner's performance illustrates). Capra was an idealist who wanted it to be true for everyone.
Let's just say that God doesn't believe in me.
Oh, come on. You Can't Take It With You was *always* a feel-good-fantasy, and not step-by-step instruction manual for living your life.
It's "do what makes you happy" philosophy would *always* have been tempered with a healthy dose of "within the limits of what you need to do to keep yourself housed, clothed, and fed". On a practical level, it was *always* more of an argument to work toward a career doing something that actually interests you (even if that wasn't your absolute maximum in pure cash earning potential) than it was a call to "drop out, tune in, and turn on" (to use a later phrase).
In that vein, it is still relevant.
In terms of the Sycamore family's specific situation: Grandpa says that he was once just like Mr. Kirby, so it is pretty likely that he had a good sum of money put away before he decided to take his early retirement. Also, this story postulates a family that owns their home free and clear, lives in a city where they have no use for a car, are happy getting their entertainment from such things as open university commencements, and live on diet of mostly hot dogs and other such inexpensive fare. In that case, it really doesn't take all that much money to get by (as long as nothing in the realm of "major medical" happens to you).
And as has been mentioned before, Paul and Mr. Depinna make money from selling their fireworks every year, and Grandpa makes money off of his stamp collections, and Alice makes her living as a secretary so there is still some income coming into the Sycamore home. And in Grandpa's case, think how much he saved by never paying taxes.
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