These
films know what you do: this is a time of both tears and laughter
by Lisa Rosman | November 15, 2018
Most of us flock to
the movies to forget our lives, but when you’re a caregiver, sometimes a little
solidarity is in order—if only so you don’t feel so alone.
Comic books, not
caring for an aging or ailing loved one, have provided the most inspiration
lately for Hollywood. But there are terrific films out there about both the
challenges—and, yes, even laughs—of this time of life.
Check out these
eight, with some as funny as they are deeply felt.
01 Make Way For Tomorrow
In 1937, director Leo
McCarey made a star out of Cary Grant with The Awful Truth, a
blockbuster screwball comedy where Grant and Irene Dunne play a couple about to
get divorced who find they may just be with the right people after all.
But in the same year,
McCarey also released Make Way for Tomorrow, a quietly despairing
portrait of the financial burdens of eldercare. It’s hard to imagine a major
Hollywood director making such a film today.
Beulah Bondi
and Victor Moore play an aging couple who, after losing their house in the
Great Depression, are forced to live separately as none of their children can
afford to keep them both. No one is painted as a villain here; instead, we see
two generations trying to maintain their humanity in the face of economic
devastation.
It’s another awful
truth that this premise grows more relevant with every passing decade: The 1953
Japanese film Tokyo Story loosely remakes this material with
grace and sorrow, as does Ira Sach’s wonderful 2014 feature Love Is
Strange, with Alfred Molina and John Lithgow as the married couple forced
to live apart because of economic reasons.
02 Whatever happened to Baby Jane?
Did you really think
a list of memorable films about caregiving would omit this 1962 camp classic?
Bette Davis and Joan
Crawford play Baby Jane and Blanche Hudson, middle-aged former movie stars who
are rattling around in a dilapidated mansion once owned by Valentino.
Before being rendered
paraplegic in a car accident of mysterious origins, Blanche achieved more
onscreen success though sister Jane was briefly a famous child vaudeville
actress. Now, though responsible for Blanche’s welfare, Jane is plotting a
comeback no matter what it takes.
All lurid lipstick
and bone-chilling twists, this is the perfect melodrama for when you don’t know
whether to laugh or cry about the pressures of caregiving.
03 Nothing in Common
Before Tom Hanks was
Mr. Academy Award, he appeared in a lot of 1980s fluff-o-tainment that is best
forgotten. Not to be lost in that shuffle is Nothing in Common (1986),
in which he plays a glib Chicago ad exec whose parents split up, forcing him to
take sole responsibility for his diabetes-stricken dad (Jackie Gleason).
Perhaps because he
was already suffering from terminal cancer, Gleason imparted an uncharacteristic
vulnerability to what could have been a by-the-book blowhard role for the
showbiz veteran. He and Hanks elevate this dramedy by Pretty Woman
director Garry Marshall to a clever study in the limitations of traditional
masculinity, especially when it comes to nurturing our loved ones.
04 Hanging Up
Diane Keaton directed
and Nora and Delia Ephron wrote the script for this feature about a trio of
sisters (Keaton, Lisa Kudrow, and Meg Ryan) whose boozer of a father (Walter
Matheau) is in the early stages of dementia.
And it sank without a
trace when it hit theaters in the year 2000.
Though trading in
ill-conceived clichés about female success, this gentle comedy deserves a
second look not just for its outrageously strong credentials but because, as
real-life survivors of just such a dad, the Ephron sisters had a lot to say
about the strain of caregiving on sibling relationships.
05 Away From Her
At age 27, Sarah
Polley surprised everyone with this thoughtful debut feature. Instead of
directing the sort of coming-of-age film de rigueur for a former child star
(see: Jodie Foster’s “Little Man Tate,” Jonah Hill’s “Mid90s”), she adapted an
Alice Munro short story about a retired couple whose marriage is torn apart by
Alzheimer’s disease when the wife forgets her still-doting husband and falls in
love with someone else in her long-term-care facility.
Starring a
beautifully weathered Julie Christie and Gordon Pinsent, this was one of 2006’s
best films–a rigorous, admirably restrained look at how long-buried resentment
may affect the endurance of memory and romantic bonds.
06 Beginners
Christopher Plummer
richly deserved the Oscar he received for portraying Hal, a septuagenarian who
is diagnosed with terminal cancer shortly after coming out of the closet. But
as Oliver, a forty-something graphic designer struggling to support the father
who rarely supported him, Ewan McGregor delivers an equally nuanced
performance.
Writer/director Mike
Mills based this 2010 indie on his now-deceased dad, and that first-hand
experience helps ground out the film’s visual whimsy--all gorgeously stylized
collages and nonlinear montages. Expect powerful insights about how it’s never
too late to change your life, or at least your relationship with your parents.
07 The Savages
Before his untimely
2014 death, Philip Seymour Hoffman depicted a string of hapless, harmful lost
souls. In this 2007 tale of fortysomething New York creatives, he is memorably
effective as a self-pitying theater professor who, with his flailing playwright
of a sister (Laura Linney), must figure out what to do with their addled
85-year-old dad.
The questions at
hand: How do we summon the good will to take care of those who never took
proper care of us? How can we take care of ourselves in the process? The film
doesn’t presume to offer any real answers, but its exploration is wryly,
ruefully funny.
08 Amour
Retired married
musicians George and Anne (Jean-Louis Trintignant and Emmanuelle Riva) live in
an elegantly appointed, self-contained bubble until Anne suffers a debilitating
stroke and their daughter (the searing Isabel Huppert) reluctantly aids an
overwhelmed George.
Riva also deserved
the Oscar she nabbed here, but the real reason to watch this film is the relief
its unflinching gaze may offer caregivers tired of sugar-coating their grief
and frustration. Writer/director Michael Haneke has long been recognized for
his morally ambiguous psychological thrillers, but this 2012 French import’s
final moments are downright shocking.
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