Now Voyager (1942)

PBS has been showing this recently so I settled in to watch. The title comes from a Walt Whitman poem...

The Untold Want
The untold want by life and land ne'er granted.
Now voyager sail thou forth to seek and find.

Betty Davis plays Charlotte Vale, the youngest daughter of a wealthy dictatorial mother. We watch the mother thwart young Charlotte's expressive vibrant nature to become the homely depressed spinster who is devoted to her mother's care in old age until a nervous breakdown introduces her to a handsome fatherly psychiatrist played by Claude Rains. He rescues her from the unhealthy home atmosphere to the sanitarium where she finds healing. He and Charlotte's aunt then cook up a scheme to send her abroad to allow the new Charlotte to blossom.

The more confident, stylish Charlotte learns more about herself as she meets new people and falls in love. Finally, she returns home with strength to be her own person as the mother attempts to break down her will and return her to the old Charlotte. The viewer can't help rooting for her in this battle. The story touches universal themes that arise between mothers and daughters throughout time.