Movie Review

Harold and Maude is a love story between a 79-year-old woman and a 20-year-old boy. This movie has led to shockwaves across the country and has created a divisive piece in American cinematic history. Many critics of that time (1971) believed that the film should be placed in the top 50 comedies of all time with the feeling of sophomoric humor surrounding death and the feasibility of the romance betveen a very young boy and a very old woman.

My first impression when I first saw this movie a year ago in the classroom of “Research Methods in Gerontology” of Dr. Carl Renold ( I don’t know why he let us see this movie which has nothing related to the course) was that this movie seems very funny, because in my own thinking, this romance can not occur in the real life. In fact, even though the phenomenon of an older woman dating and having intimate relationship with a younger man is very “a la mode”( new fashion) at actual time, it is very hard to see a such real love story. For instance, in the 60’s in France, the famous and well-known 80-year-old French singer Edith Piaf, who had an intimate relationship with the young 20-year-oll boy Jacques Brel, has raised many critics among the public opinion and among her numerous fans. People at that time believed that the young boy has profited her fame to enter the world of music in France. And it was right! Actually, I more than one time witness in the Vietnamese community old Vietnamese women, who own some business with some money in hand, getting rid of their old husbands to date young men, even thoug they know that these young men only focus on their money. A true love with a big gap of age only exists in a beautiful dream.

On the contrary, in the movie”Harold and Maude”, Harold, a young man coming from a very wealthy family background, is completely detached from it. He is out of step of the world and a loner who acts out extremely disturbing and darkly comic scenarios in front of his neurotic and very worried mother in order to make clear his point of view about what he feels about his own life.Until one day, his favorite pasttime of attending funerals gives him the occasion of meeting Maud, a 79-year-old woman with a wonderful free spirit and enjoying life that he recognizes in himself. Then , they form a touching and poignant relationship in which Maud has taught the young Herold a lot of things of “being different” that constitute a source of joy in this life.

Anyway, I enjoy to watch this movie. However, I am willing to know if somebody could tell me where I could find a dynamic and stong enough 79-year-old woman like Maud. In my own opinion, maybe the author and filmaker Hal Ashby has gone to far in his imagination about a wonderful romance. If I were Hal Ashby, I will give Maud a woman of between 50 to 60 years old.