Rely on Charlie Chaplin to beautifully convey the simple joys and troubles of human experience with the most minute of actions and expressions. City Lights once again showcases his blessed gift of seamlessly providing sharp comic balance for his more distressing & gloomy subject matter, making use of the Tramp’s clumsy mannerisms and exaggerated desire for love for spot-on dramatic irony and clear sense of his inferiority complex.

The film reaches maximum poignancy once these feelings are challenged and its simple thematic ambitions come to bloom; through his misguided perception of a suicidal millionaire, he falsely comes to think that true happiness stems from high status, lavish materialism, and the consistent drink. This in turn adjusts his approach to a blind flower-girl he seeks, relying on a withdrawn, dishonest self-presentation that while tender, doesn’t represent a high moral state.

Again, Chaplin never loses sight of the film’s emotional balance, taking generally bleak incidents associated with the ongoing Great Depression and exploiting them for timeless comic relief, bringing forth vivid insight to the absurdities of wealth, the country’s financial desperation, and the harmful consequences they all bear. The boxing sequence is prime slapstick Chaplin, with creative scenery-chewing further enhancing the Tramp’s tireless ambitions, but the final scene takes the ranks as prime human Chaplin, bringing its smallest of motifs and the Tramp’s foregoing self-consciousness to a seamless thematic revelation.

Wealth will buy you indulgence, but won’t buy you friends. Only in staying true to yourself will you live at with utmost dignity, moral integrity, and euphoria. Maintain the human inside, and there will surely be someone willing to embrace it. And that there’s a priceless luxury.