21Jun
Lousy: Love in the Time of Dementia
This brief, thoughtful, and intriguing video by Frank Silverstein shares 3 years of visits with his parents, Joe and Lynn Silverstein, as they age-in-place in their home.
Intimacy in Later Life
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18Apr
Love Limits
Love Limits is a transcendent film about the unique loving relationship shared by Cory Ann Rudy, age 36, and Warren Barrow, age 83. In addition to the difference in their ages, they differ in other significant ways. Cory is a White woman from a farm in upstate New York; Warren is an African-American man from Brooklyn.
30Sep
Ask Dr. Ruth
By speaking publicly and frankly about sexuality, Dr. Ruth Westheimer helped untold numbers of individuals overcome impediments to healthy sexual pleasure. The new film, Ask Dr Ruth, chronicles her long life, from her early childhood in Germany, to her current very active professional life.
17Sep
Another Year
Another Year, written and directed by Mike Leigh in 2010, is the singular and exceptional example of a film that portrays an older married couple without resorting to the traditional story line structured around a threat to the relationship.
17Sep
Le Weekend
Another way to dramatically explore the character of an older spousal relationship is to locate the conflict within the relationship itself. The 2013 film, Le Weekend (written by Hanif Kureishi and directed by Roger Michell), does this quite effectively.
17Sep
Something’s Gotta Give
An older wealthy tycoon (played by Jack Nicholson) dates only younger women until he meets the mother of one of them (yes, played by Diane Keaton) and eventually realizes what he’s been missing in a relationship.
17Sep
And So It Goes
This film spins a story of later-life romance using hand-me-down dialogue, story line, and characters. (Even the title lacks imagination.) In this woeful film, Michael Douglas plays the typical angry older (but youngish looking) adult whose wife has died.
17Sep
Love is All You Need
In the Danish film, Love Is All You Need (Bier, 2013) a very similar story unfolds—newly found romantic connection in the context of the wedding of children. An anger-holding long-time widower attends his son’s wedding in Italy, and while there becomes increasingly attracted to and then deeply in love with the mother of his daughter-in-law to be.
16Sep
The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel
Saving the worst for last, the sequel film, The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel should only be seen if you have exhausted every other diversion available to you.
16Sep
Friend Request Pending
Friend Request Pending is a refreshingly unique short-sketch film that features a few hours in the life of an older woman making an online connection with a desirable man.
07Sep
Innocence
The one other film that deals authentically with late life marital intimacy is Innocence, produced and directed by Australian filmmaker Paul Cox in 2000. Like Hope Springs, Innocence addresses the issue of lifelessness and resignation in the relationship of an older couple.
11Jul
A Secret Love
Terry Donahue and Pat Henschel met in 1947 while playing hockey in Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan. They were immediately attracted to each other and soon formed a lifelong partnership that lasted for 72 years. A Secret Love engagingly tells the story of their relationship formed during a time when same sex couples were extremely vulnerable to societal scorn and persecution, and family rejection.
11Jun
Ordinary Love
Rarely does a major motion picture come along that captures the nuanced and everyday character of the love between long-married couples. When movies do tell the love stories of older adults, they usually fall back on the commonly sought-after romantic stories of new love.
31Jan
The Age of Love
At the outset of The Age of Love , an elderly man shows videographer Steven Loring a snapshot of his wife and himself taken at night: “We were right in the woods and it was great. We could sit in the creek with a case of beer in the water. You love each other and you have a good time, no matter what you do—whether it’s drinking or walking or sitting at the fire at night.
31Jan
Edith + Eddie
The opening moments of Edith + Eddie lead us to believe we are entering a story about the nature of love shared between newly-weds Edith, age 96, and Eddie, age 95. Videographer Laura Checkoway was attracted by the growing internet attention received by “America’s oldest interracial newly-weds.” Edith is black; Eddie is white.
06Sep
What They Had
In the opening scenes of this captivating film, an older woman gets out of bed in the dark, gets partially dressed, and walks out of the house in a light jacket into a snowy night. The shot holds on her walking down the street for several seconds until she disappears into a shower of heavy snowfall. A wife/mother has disappeared, setting off panic on the part of her husband and children.