The Empty Life is ostensibly about psychological âboredom,â which resembles modern depression. The film depicts several dramatizations of different people who are bored with their lives and have developed some neurotic compensating behavior or other problem. Ann Galloway, a bored housewife, anesthetizes herself with alcohol, the grocer who lives down the street is a nymphomaniac, and Hugh Marriott hates his job but canât quit because his domineering wife wonât let him. Hugh is the star of the show, and the film shows how his mother (also domineering) and his wife have ruined his life and the life of his son. This movie has themes that are very typical of the 1950âs, including blaming women for menâs âproblemsâ while ignoring the fact that womenâs lives were usually even more boring, confined, and depressing than the men they were supposedly bringing down. A weird jazz soundtrack and heavy-handed narration adds to the camp factor of this film, but there are moments when the pain of the ...
