Review of When Tomorrow Comes

While not as big and splashy as their pairing in "Love Affair" released the same year, Irene Dunne and Charles Boyer star in what is rather a "small" film. "When Tomorrow Comes" is a tale of unrequited love between two people who because of the man being bound to a mentally ill wife can never be together. Irene Dunne convincingly plays an underemployed ordinary working gal, one who aspires to be a singer but who is stuck toiling the days away as a waitress. Her character bonds with Boyer's character by disobeying her restaurant's "no substitutions" rule and fulfilling his request for French apple pie. This scene is endearing as she dares to simply place a piece of cheese on top of a slice of hot apple pie and cover the pie until the cheese melts--LOL, "it ain't nothing' but a thing" as Dunne goes the extra step to please the customer. From then on the two are friends and go off together to explore Manhattan and go sailing together. Their would be love affair is derailed by nothing less than a hurricane and the reappearance of Boyer's wife, played here by Barbara O'Neill. O'Neill steals the show as she portrays a woman who is mentally unbalanced, but not for the reason everyone suspects. While her illness is attributed to the death of her infant son, we soon discover that she is using this as an excuse to keep Boyer bound to her. In the scene where Dunne confronts her and pleads for her to release Boyer, we are chilled by O'Neill's psychopathic threat to do harm to Boyer should he leave her for Dunne. O'Neill is scary as hell and Dunne understands as the audience does that she is promising to do Boyer harm not merely threatening to. Because of this, Dunne knows that Boyer can never be hers and for this reason she must bid him farewell forever. The final scene where they part ways as she exits from the restaurant where they are having their last supper together is a tearjerker. No matter how many times she plays the poignant heroine who is called on to do the right thing, Dunne nails it. Her pain is our pain. Boyer's pain in losing her is also our own. Their love is lost and the pain is unbearable.