BEFORE: Back on Netflix tonight, I'm slowly chipping away at my list there, even 4 or 5 films off that list each month is still technically progress, but it's slow going. I wish I could move that process along faster, because going at this rate increases the chances that the films are going to be removed from that service, and I'll have to track them down somewhere else, which could be more expensive. But I've got the plan that should get me to the end of the year, so it is what it is.
Also it's time to check the web for that monthly report on "What's Coming to Netflix This Month", and hope there isn't too much stuff to add to my list. I've skated by the last two months without adding much of anything, so that helps reduce the list - as does watching a comedy special after the movie each time I go on Netflix. I'm dancing as fast as I can, but films still keep piling up, if not on Netflix then I see there's new stuff on iTunes, or new films on premium cable. The end will never be in sight as long as I keep finding movies to add.
Iain Armitage (aka "Young Sheldon") carries over from "The Glass Castle".
THE PLOT: Addie Moore and Louis Waters are a widow and widower who've lived next to each other for years. The pair have almost no relationship, but that all changes when Addie tries to make a connection with her neighbor.
AFTER: Well, I hadn't PLANNED to hit the back-to-school films for another two weeks, but it seems like the countdown had a few ideas of its own and took care of things at the proper time anyway. Yesterday's film had a family of four children who were being home-(non)schooled, and the kids took it upon themselves to enroll in classes. And tonight's film features a young boy sent to stay with his grandmother for a few weeks, until his classes start in September. That means this film is very possibly set in August, or late summer anyway, so the timing couldn't have been better if I'd tried, which of course I didn't. My chosen school-related films will still come around in a few weeks, so this is maybe a nice soft lead-in.
But the timing of the young boy coming to stay with Grandma just couldn't be worse. The boy's mother has taken off, so his father needs some time to get his head together and deal with the situation, but Grandma has just started a relationship of sorts with the equally old man next door, not a sexual one just yet, but one based on a mutual respect and desire to not sleep alone. And it's all about getting to sleep at their age, you know what I mean? Each of them has outlived their life partners, with their children either grown up (or deceased) the nights are long and lonely, so why not spend them together? Sounds like a plan, until that damn kid shows up.
There's also a concern about the gossip in this small Colorado (or is it Utah?) town, that neighbors will see him knocking on her door, night after night, and assume they're not just sleeping together, but also "sleeping together". But since they're both in their 70's, they figure, so what? Let people gossip if they've got nothing better to do. And they've been around, they've lived life, played the marriage game and came out the other side, so it really doesn't even matter what they do at this point. But as they get together each night, drink wine and/or beer, and make small talk before retiring, they talk about their pasts, their deceased spouses, what went right and what went wrong over the years, and gradually they form a partnership bond. Well, I guess it's either this or get into a retirement home and really start playing the field.
Eventually her son shows up and doesn't approve of this arrangement, but later his daughter also visits, and she's fine with it. She remembers the year or so when her father wasn't there very differently, and she took it as an opportunity to become a stronger individual. He remembers the time separated from his wife as a failure of sorts, but enough time has passed that both of these seniors can admit their mistakes, confess their sins and clear their consciences together. Good for them - it's not easy to form a partnership bond, no matter what your age, so if you've got a chance at something like this, you've sort of just got to take it and see where it leads.
So there's not really a lot of tense drama here, it's more of a slice-of-life partial romance film, unless you enjoy watching Robert Redford showing a kid his old model train set or teaching him how to throw a baseball. Whatever keeps the kid from staring at his phone all day, I guess. But I've got to call a NITPICK POINT on letting the kid sleep in the same bed with his grandmother AND her non-boyfriend. Even if that man is a fine upstanding member of the community with no criminal record, it still doesn't feel very appropriate. OK, MAYBE if the kid had a nightmare it might be sort of OK for him to crawl into bed with Grandma, but the male neighbor that he doesn't even know? Not in this day and age. If the boy's father had found out about that, he would have been very upset, and I think rightfully so.
They also take the boy on a camping trip, again, without the father's knowledge or assent, and while that may be less of an offense, it still seems like the sort of thing they should have cleared with the boy's father. It's a very cruel thing indeed to take a young boy camping, in my opinion, but if anything had happened on the trip, they could have been in some really dubious legal territory. They couldn't make a phone call to the boy's father to inform him about it?
Also starring Jane Fonda (last seen in "Filmworker"), Robert Redford (last seen in "Jane Fonda in Five Acts"), Bruce Dern (ditto), Matthias Schoenaerts (last seen in "Red Sparrow"), Judy Greer (last seen in "Pottersville"), Phyllis Somerville (last seen in "Lucky You").
RATING: 5 out of 10 pizza boxes
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