By Erin Free
ASTRONAUT (2018)
In this touching drama, impressive debut writer/director Shelagh McLeod showcases a simple, redoubtable fact: your dreams don’t die just because you get old. Hollywood legend Richard Dreyfuss (Jaws, The Goodbye Girl, Mr. Holland’s Opus) is Angus Stewart, a seventy-five-year old former civil engineer living with his loving but constantly harried daughter Molly (Krista Bridges), her slightly disapproving husband Jim (Lyriq Bent), and their son Barney (Richie Williams), who stands as Angus’ biggest fan. With his health failing, Angus is eventually shipped off to a seniors’ home, but his intelligence and independence remain undimmed. And when billionaire Richard Branson/Bill Gates-type Marcus Brown (Colm Feore) announces a raffle system to find the right person to fill a seat on his first public flight into space, Angus lies about his age, and sets in motion his lifelong dream to become an astronaut. (Read full review here)
STILL MINE (2012)
A moving tale of growing old, Canada’s Still Mine is a charmingly universal story. Craig Morrison (James Cromwell) is a hard-working man of the land in his late eighties. When his wife, Irene (Genevieve Bujold), starts to show signs of possible Alzheimer’s, Craig decides to build a smaller, more manageable home on their patch of land. But despite his building prowess, Craig soon finds himself at the mercy of government bureaucracy, and fears that neither he nor Irene will live to see the completion of their new home. Still Mine might sound like a Frank Capra-style one-man-against-the-system type movie, but this based-in-fact drama has a broader agenda than simply rousing the audience in support of its ageing David against the Goliath of governmental red tape. It’s a story about how love – physical, sexual, emotional – can still drive and inspire people, even when society at large might view them as being past it. Funny, affirming, sad, and true, Still Mine is a quiet triumph. See also: Our Souls At Night (2017)
HARRY BROWN (2009)
Though famous for his perfectly timed performances in the likes of Alfie, Get Carter, The Italian Job and Hannah And Her Sisters, British icon and veteran screen legend Michael Caine’s most personal role wouldn’t come until 2009 with the bleak drama, Harry Brown, in which he played the titular anti-hero, an ex-soldier and widower living out his old age in an England that he doesn’t recognise anymore. When Harry’s only friend, Leonard (David Bradley), is murdered by local thugs, the anguish-wracked pensioner turns unlikely avenging angel, buying a gun and using the skills that he learned as a soldier in violence-ravaged Northern Ireland to bring his own brand of justice to England’s amoral criminal underclass. “For this role, my life experience was almost set up for it,” Michael Caine has said of the role. “I come from the slums, I come from a hard background, and I was a soldier.”
GRAN TORINO (2008) & THE MULE (2018)
One of the hardest working octogenarians in the world, Clint Eastwood is still turning out directorial efforts at a strikingly prolific rate, with his latest film, Richard Jewell, rating as one of his best in years. Thankfully, Eastwood isn’t afraid to make movies about the compromised glory of getting old, and he’s toplined two of his own films with great performances as men in their twilight years. Gran Torino’s Walt Kowalski is the tougher of the two – a Korean war veteran who gutsily comes to the aid of his Hmong neighbours in a stunning display of sacrifice – though The Mule’s Earl Stone is no pushover either, supplementing his work as a florist by bringing drugs in over the border from Mexico to the US. Thanks to Eastwood’s flinty magnetism and emotional honesty, these two magisterial old men will truly dig their way into your soul. See also: The Old Man & The Gun (2018)
AWAY FROM HER (2006)
Directed by then 27-year-old director Sarah Polley, Away From Her begins with Grant (Gordon Pinsent) and Fiona (Julie Christie), a devoted couple who have been married for fifty years. When Fiona’s previously dismissed memory lapses get progressively worse, the couple’s carefully constructed world quickly starts to come undone. After coming to grips with the fact that she is suffering from Alzheimer’s disease, the still vibrant Fiona makes the galling decision to enter a retirement home that specialises in the disease. Though rarely separated, one of the strict rules of the home is that a patient may not have any visitors during their first month, and Grant is shut out. After an excruciatingly painful thirty days, he returns to discover that Fiona seems to have no memory of him. Away From Her sings with an astounding beauty, resonating emotionally at every turn. But the most surprising thing is the way in which its youthful writer/director so expertly taps into the alternate joys and horrors of growing old. See also: Amour (2017)
THE HERO (2017)
In one of the most criminally underrated performances of the last ten years (hell, maybe even twenty), veteran actor Sam Elliott is utterly hypnotic in Brett Haley’s equally under-appreciated 2017 drama, The Hero. In this moodily paced but utterly compelling slice of West Coast Americana, Elliott is Lee Hayden, a washed up one-time western movie icon now haunted by his past glories and faced with his own mortality. While a relationship with a much, much, much younger comedienne (the excellent Laura Prepon) helps distract Lee from where his life is going, it also serves to remind him that some generation gaps might be impossible to jump over. Meditative and wildly independent in tone, The Hero is one of the coolest films about old age that you’ll ever see. See also: The Last Movie Star (2017)
THE BEST EXOTIC MARIGOLD HOTEL (2011)
An ensemble of Brit A-listers play retirees who find themselves in Jaipur at The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel – a residence for the elderly managed by Sonny (Lion’s Dev Patel). We first meet each of these characters in their native England, getting to know a little about their lives and why they’re India-bound. The plot involves the recently widowed Evelyn (Judi Dench), the miserably married Douglas (Bill Nighy) and Jean (Penelope Wilton), retired high court judge Graham (Tom Wilkinson) – a gay man whose Indian sojourn is both poignant and involving – and Norman’s (Ronald Pickup) search for senior sex. Directed by John Madden (Shakespeare In Love, Mrs. Brown), The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel was a smash hit back in 2011 (even spawning the popular sequel, The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel), almost playing out like something akin to a senior citizens’ version of The Avengers. See also: Going In Style (2017), Last Vegas (2013).
THE MOTHER (2003)
Pulling no punches, Roger Michell’s The Mother introduces us to May, a 65-year-old grandmother whose simple, domestic life is upturned by the death of her husband. Once alone, May finds that her children’s sympathies for her desolation are limited at best – when she needs them most, she finds the people she raised are selfish, self-obsessed and most painfully of all, blame her for their poor emotional well-being. Violently lonely, May fixates on handyman Darren (a way pre-James Bond Daniel Craig, when he was more renowned for his indie chops than his sex appeal), her loopy daughter’s married boyfriend. Slightly unhinged himself, young Darren agrees to the old woman’s pleas for his sexual attention, and becomes her lover. As far as groundbreaking, soul searching seediness and discomfort go, this is as good as (or as difficult) as it gets. Hanif Kureishi’s (The Buddha of Suburbia, My Beautiful Laundrette) script is as tender as it is cold-hearted. Marta Jary. See also: Harold And Maude (1971), Venus (2006).
REMEMBER (2015)
Atom Egoyan’s Remember contends with the spectral nature of time and memory through an 86-year-old Auschwitz survivor named Zev (Christopher Plummer). Suffering from dementia, Zev embarks, with instructions from his friend, Max (Martin Landau), on a manhunt across North America for the German who he believes killed his family during the war, brandishing a glock as he progressively crosses off a list of potential targets. Zev’s dementia, however, means that his memory is unreliable. Things are not what they seem, and his perceived past proves to be composed of subjective, selective memory, the truth of which proves devastating. Remember is that rare film that is both a thriller and a deeply serious character drama. Christopher Plummer gives an extraordinary performance, with the deeply fraught passage of Zev’s near ninety-years written in his soulful eyes. Remember is a fascinating examination of time, memory, and the human condition which is both meaningful and outwardly entertaining. Matthew Lowe
YOUNG @ HEART (2007)
Narrated by its British director Stephen Walker, Young @ Heart follows the eponymous choir (whose average age is eighty) as they rehearse new material (including tracks by Sonic Youth, The Ramones, Coldplay, James Brown, Talking Heads and David Bowie!) for a big gig in their hometown of Northampton, Massachusetts. Led by middle-aged musical director, “taskmaster” Bob Cilman, and aided by a solid backing band, the choir’s interpretation of modern songs is quite fascinating. Apart from the wonderful music, this thoroughly entertaining doco succeeds because we really get to know these great and gutsy seniors. On a deeper level, it underlines how important community involvement is for older people – the chorus lives for its work. There’s also real life drama. When a couple of the choir members fall ill, the documentary has the ability to move you to tears. Young @ Heart is funny, touching and life affirming. Annette Basile. See also: Quartet (2012)
If you liked this story, check out our feature about Hollywood’s embracing of older audiences.
