Gone with the Wind is a traditional holiday movie around Christmas and New Year’s. It has that epic scope that makes it a worthy holiday film. Perhaps a soap opera, this film has people and the days of their lives at its core. It’s told on a huge canvass and is set in the South at the time of the American Civil War. Gone with the Wind is big.

There is one line that makes Gone with the Wind a truly New Year’s kind of movie. “Tomorrow is another day” says Vivien Leigh’s Scarlett O’ Hara in the final scene. Scarlett goes through all sorts of bother during the year. But at the end she is able to have smidgen of hope in what’s the future.

New beginnings

That’s the sort of New Year I would like to have—if the rest of the year has been porridge.

Scarlett has one of those years.

Not only does she get dumped by her husband, their relationship has been competitive, outrageous and downright silly.

From her perspective, Scarlett doesn’t get what she really wants from a relationship. She actually fancied someone else, but couldn’t get him because he is engaged. Her marriage is one of those passionate/tumultuous love affairs bound to go wrong.

I am tempted to say that Scarlett deserved it because she is self-centered, self-absorbed and flirtatious. But when bad things happen to her–she loses so much including loved ones–I sympathized. Not that her husband is any better.

Her big downer moment is when her hubby Rhett Butler, played by the always charismatic Clark Gable, is about to leave her. “Frankly dear I don’t give a damn,” he says in a temper and in a flash he’s gone.

Scarlett leaned on Rhett for support, but the strong Scarlett musters enough courage on recalling the supportive words of her father all those years ago. “Remember the land…” She then realizes to put her hand to the plow because working the land is going to produce something. Then, she utters those immortal words: “Tomorrow is another day”.

Sounds like New Year’s to me.