Senior Citizens of Cinema are Finally Acting their Ages

By Chris Knight, nationalpost.com

June 6, 2009

If you've ever tried to get to the name of a movie from a vague description, you know it can be tricky. "The one where Denzel Washington plays a cop" doesn't narrow things down much. "The film with Tom Hanks as a bad guy" leaves you with precious little to choose from. Most weeks, the question: "What new film stars an old guy who takes a balloon ride?" would return at most one reply. Right now it gets you two.

Last week, Disney/Pixar took to the skies with Up, in which the curmudgeonly Carl Fredricksen (79-year-old Ed Asner) ties helium balloons to his house to lift it off the ground. Yesterday, Up was joined by the new release Empties, which also features an old man and a lighter-than-air journey. Granted, you'd never confuse the two past the opening credits. Up is computer-generated animation that requires the use of 3-D glasses; Empties is a live-action film from the Czech Republic, with English subtitles.

They are both, however, part of a groundswell of films that feature virile protagonists in their golden years. This week alone saw two more besides Empties. The best is the Norwegian comedy O'Horten, about a 67-year-old train engineer who finds himself in all manner of weird situations after his retirement.

Also opening this weekend is My Life in Ruins. Although it stars 46-year-old Nia Vardalos as an Athens tour guide, it also features Richard Dreyfuss as an ageing American tourist who steers her character away from a dalliance with a shallow pancake executive and toward the Greek love of her life, who has been patiently waiting to be noticed. Dreyfuss, as befits his sexy sexagenarian status, also gets some action from two love-starved Spanish divorcees. Yes, both at once. Apparently, in spite of what some movies would have us believe, 60 is the new 20.

Other recent cinematic elders include 72-year-old Red West as the suicidally grumpy old white guy in Goodbye Solo, and the cast of the German film Cloud 9, in which a sixty-something grandmother takes an older man as her lover. And don't forget Brad Pitt's Benjamin Button, who was born old and grew physically younger even as his wisdom and experience deepened.

Old people in the movies generally fall into one of two polar cliches: They're either saintly dispensers of the wisdom of the aged, or they're swearing like sailors and riding skateboards. In contrast, the recent field of seniors shows some remarkable depth of character.

Up's Carl is unique in that he headlines a film aimed squarely at kids. My four-year-old, who saw the movie last weekend, thought it was funny when young Russell dropped a GPS out the window of the flying house, but he's had many more questions about what motivates "the guy with the glasses." Pixar hasn't previously had much use for old people (or, to be fair, any people) in most of its animated films; the only major character that springs to mind is Paul Newman's past-his-prime racer in Cars.

Carl not only anchors Up; he is the film's most relatable character for audiences of any age. It's true that he and Russell each learn something from the other (though it sounds glib to put it so starkly), but the old guy is also on his own path of discovery. After all, it takes gumption to pull up stakes and move to South America at such an advanced age, even if you do take your china cabinet, comfy chair and kitchen sink with you.

Other senior cinema citizens are equally, er, three-dimensional. Josef, the retired literature professor in Empties, spends half his time fantasizing about women and the other half naively trying to bring romantic happiness to others, even setting up his daughter, whose husband has just left her, with a former colleague who doesn't realize the two are related. To top it off, he surprises his wife with a trip in a hot-air balloon, a treat Up's widower probably wishes he'd thought of doing while his spouse was still alive. Josef is clearly a man with a lusty appreciation of life, even if it does veer toward infidelity at times.

Old age in these movies brings with it a remarkable sense of buoyancy, metaphoric and otherwise. The engineer in O'Horten shows a calm bemusement through most of his adventures, which include an impromptu ski jump, while Dreyfuss in My Life in Ruins obviously never met a line he couldn't punch.

One of the top documentaries last year was about a seniors' choir that performs some rocking covers. The title was Young @ Heart, but to look at the elders on the screens these days is to see people who are old at heart, and pretty comfortable with it. Rather than suggest that old age is an impairment to be borne or, if possible, fixed, the current crop of films celebrates those who qualify for the seniors' discount, and gives the rest of us something to look forward to.

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