It's the first time I'm watching this movie out of all my 53yrs on this earth. And what better day to watch than now to give me perspective on a movie playing out in real life.
Here we have a boy from a small town who like the majority of us want to leave said town after high school and see the world and make his mark for he saw that this small town had nothing but despair and emptiness for the dreams he had for himself. But, as life goes for a young man as himself, circumstances arise that prevents him from leaving for he had a larger obligation to the small town he was trying to escape.
Everyone he knew escaped, but him. He saw it as his duty to help the citizens of this small town and save a relic of a business that the town depended on this business for they had little means otherwise. Like every small town or larger, there a few people with oversized influence who can easily sway those most affected to see things his way or be under his thumb for life or generations. But, this young man who failed to escape this small town was the only buffer between this wealthy person screwing these out of every penny they would ever had.
But, another thing is, the people he was trying to help ended up taking advantage of his good heartedness. See the business this man wanted to keep open as a last line of defense didn't make any money and always lived hand to mouth because the good hearted man didn't want to charge the people like the wealthy man. So, again, I believe the people took advantage of this man's desire to blindly help the people of this town.
As I said before, everyone in the town took advantage of him, except the one girl who was smitten by him. The one girl who had every opportunity of men to pick, but she saw something in this man to hitch her wagon take the tougher path in life for her belief in him.
Day after day, he struggled through life while she supported him and the town he served took advantage of his good nature and at any point would abandon him for the no good wealthy man who would fleece them at his whim.
I write this at the point in the movie where he goes to the wealthy man pleading for his help.
This movie say everything about every day life we live today. That we will walk over the average person who lives to serve the many in order to bow at the feet of the wealthy to serves no one.