![]() They reunite here in "Our Souls at Night" from 2017, and they're as delightful as ever. Robert Redford and Jane Fonda - two of the biggest names in film history - have been a wonderful partnership on film since their first film together 50+ years ago. In that context, the premise here, if this film resonates with people in the months and years to come, could become a milestone in rom-coms. Dozens of rom-coms since that era have started with the very first scene taking place "the morning after," leaving the audience to wonder how the original romance blossomed, before getting caught up in the subsequent events. Remember that in the 1970s scriptwriters tried to "take the rom-com up a notch" by deliberately cutting out the "boy meets girl" portion of the traditional formula. In fact - this for film historians only - it may be a true breakthrough in concept. It has ebbs and flows, ups and downs, and most importantly never quite heads in the direction you expect it to. Even the way Redford's character chooses to initially respond to the invitation - not by a 411.com search, but by looking up Fonda's phone number in a handwritten address book his late wife had left behind - brings an unavoidable smile to those who grasp the passage of time. well, let's just say that a raised eyebrow would be least you could expect in return The script is so subtle (a word I have astonishingly used only a very few times in some 1350+ reviews here) that the viewer does not know whether to laugh or cry. If in 1967 - please put on your time travel, butterfly effect, hats here - you had suggested to these two that a full half-century later they would star is a laid-back but irrefutably charming rom-com where, in the very first scene, Fonda shows up at Redford's door and politely asks if he would mind sleeping with her. This may be a shock to the younger IMDb members, but at one time Redford and Fonda were not merely the biggest stars in Hollywood but also the biggest sex symbols in the biz. ![]() If that theorem is to be proved anywhere, it would be in this wonderful movie. The subtext of this movie may well be that the Baby Boomers, once the top demographic on the planet, having failed to improve the political system or the economic system, or to manifest especially noteworthy parenting skills - in fact, having failed to improve the planet in any detectable way - may best be remembered for simply getting old. Some have said that Napoleon would have been nothing without Waterloo. ![]() A delicate poetry and admirable use of silent moments, good cinema and a rare delicacy serving the cause of a sort of friendship between two neighbors, not very familiar one with other, but discovering sparkles of life in gentle manner, returning to true love. From the eccentric, only at the first sight, proposition of Addie, to the life of comunity, marriage crisis and death of child, relation with children, new chance and a call in night, confessions, memories, reactions of others, it is just a comfortable oasis, soft, precise in detail, proposing a sort of romance who is easy to be feel by a generation not so young but far to accept the fall of life. But the film proposes more than nice flavors of late time. The source of interest was, for me, the presence in cast of Jane Fonda and Robert Redford as a sort of return to old cinema, more full of wisdom, serenity and real good job of actors, out of ambitions of blockbuster and a lot of special effects. Kudos to Fonda, Redford and the other actors, who were uniformly good, and well directed. The stars have made three movies together before this: as an escaped convict and his unfaithful wife in "The Chase" (1966), as an uptight lawyer and his free-spirit bride in "Barefoot in the Park" (1967), and as a broken-down rodeo star and a sassy journalist in "The Electric Horseman" (1979) - and in "Our Souls at Night," they still bring out in each other a warmth and an easygoing manner, as if they've always been and always will be like this. Mostly, the director Batra lets the well-worked chemistry Redford and Fonda share do the heavy lifting. Their baggage, their apprehension about starting a new relationship and their knowledge that there isn't time to waste are enough, and them overcoming those issues is what propels the story. Rather, it's about companionship, having someone to talk to and "getting through the night." Louis thinks it over and agrees. ![]() ![]() That's why it strikes Louis, a widower, as odd when Addie, a widow, comes over one evening with a matter-of-fact request: "Would you be interested in coming over to my house sometime and sleeping with me?" It's not about sex, Addie adds - "I lost interest in that a long time ago," she says. In a small town in Colorado, Addie Moore (Fonda) and Louis Waters (Redford) have been neighbors for decades but don't really know each other. Just a heartwarming story of two lonely people way, way into the last nine holes of their lives. ![]()
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