At one point in 2011’s Late Bloomers, one of William Hurt’s sons tell him about the difference between cognitive age and physical age. Apparently, the difference between the two is most people think of themselves, on average, as eight years younger than their physical age. As somebody on the downward slope past the middle of middle age, I can relate. It will never stop being weird seeing yourself in a mirror and wondering who that old person is.
In this comedy-drama, Hurt and Isabella Rossellini play a long-married couple facing difficult decisions at the next crossroads of their relationship and lives. He is a celebrated architect who wants to continue to work, though he is loathe to design the senior living center that is a necessary project to keep his firm going. She is startled by a couple of memory lapses, which stirs her to prepare their apartment for improved accessibility in their advanced years. When he is exasperated by the improvements she has made, she makes a statement that stabbed me in the heart: “I’m old and you’re old. We crossed over to the other side without even noticing it.”
There are many themes touched on here, and the voices of multiple generations are included—even that of the generation preceding the main characters. Doreen Mantle, as Rossellini’s mother, steals every scene she is in, especially when she shies from having to visit her entirely disinterested great-grandchildren: “I don’t know which I hate more: future suits or future sluts.” And yet she has a very important lesson to impart upon the youngest people appearing in this film: “For the rest of the afternoon, I want you to sit around being bored. It’s good for your health and it’s good for your imagination. People who do not know how to be bored grow up to be idiots.” It took me a looong time to realize what a gift it is to experience boredom. The older the get, the more of a rarity and luxury it becomes.
Late Bloomers was a movie that caught me sideways. My sole reasons for watching it are because Rossellini is in it, and this disc turned up in a sale for very little money. I hope others will discover this charming, thoughtful and gently humorous film for themselves.
Dir: Julie Gavras
Starring William Hurt, Isabella Rossellini, Doreen Mantle
Watched on Olive blu-ray