The other day while out running, I was listening to my ipod and by chance stumbled across Frank Sinatra’s well-known, It was a very good year (I must add here that he incidentally didn’t write the song he helped make famous; all the credit goes to Ervin Drake who apparently wrote it in the space of an hour, originally to be performed by two other artists. But it was Sinatra that carried it to glory, subsequently winning a Grammy for his rendition in 1966, at the age of 51).
The song, which I’m sure you’ll have heard at some point – if not, do! – recalls all the various relationships of the artist at different periods in his life. It begins at 17, before moving on to 21, and finally to 35, before concluding that the romance is over, his amorous adventures now a ‘vintage wine’ to be remembered.
Forgive me if I’m wrong, but to my mind, 35 isn’t old. Having recently turned a number that hedges closer to the big three-oh than I am comfortable with (i.e. traversing that half-a-century safety net), I’m beginning to realise just how not-old it is. With this in mind, I listened to the song with perhaps a more attentive ear than usual, as I tried to glean from the lyrics some kind of comforting message.
A message that never came, obviously, as his rich voice proclaimed, full of melancholy, that his life was finished at 35. (Could be to avoid sensitivity in discussing the love life of a man over forty, but I digress….)
35. Jesus. According to that figure I have less than a decade left to screw everything in sight. Because after that, apparently I’m as good as dead. Romance wise at least. Well, I’ve got some good news. It’s not your last chance. Or says Joel Hopkins with his latest film, Last Chance for Love.
I’d not planned to go and see it seriously, since everyone my age flatly refused to go with me. But in the end, curiosity got the better of me. I wanted to see the good news for myself, evidently now that Sinatra wasn’t going to budge. So that was how I found myself, alone, in a cinema with an all female audience, all of whom were over the age of forty (I’m bending the truth slightly here, for there was actually a man – also in his forties – and the other a seventy-something, who’d obviously been dragged along by his wife).
While I waited uncomfortably for the lights to dim, feeling more and more out of place, I was struck with a terrible thought. Would I too, one day, be like all of these women (and token man) who sat alone in their seats late on a Saturday afternoon, with nothing better to do than to go see a film to reassure themselves that there is still hope left in the world?
If that wasn’t enough to make me run, then Ms Fifty installed herself next to me – also alone, I noted – and proceeded to pull a pastry out of her bag. I remembered with horror that I too had bought a pastry to eat during the movie. Here I was, Miss Twenty-Six Tender, sitting beside the replica of myself, twenty years on. Still alone. Eating my pastry for one. I almost put my arms around my body, just to check that I was still in one, slightly more youthful, piece; feeling like I so often do, a mere pawn in a high chess world of Kings and Queens. That looming sense of powerlessness that reminds me that so much of what happens here on earth is outside of our control. Including getting old.
So I was somewhat relieved when the lights finally went down (and I could scarf down my own pastry and relieve some of the waiting stress). Despite all this, I’m not someone who often lets ageism get the better of me. For my own part, I’ve sat through numerous films on the subject, I felt somewhat obligated to see – as not to ignore a part of life that made me uncomfortable. Forcing myself to acknowledge a reality I will one day have to face.
Has it gotten easier? I’m not sure. There’s been a few films over the years worth noting, I’m not sure sit easily with most, irrespective of age. For example, The Mother (2003) with the phenomenal, Anne Reid and James Bond’s own, Daniel Craig; a very realistic portrayal of one mother’s affair with a younger man. A hard, intriguing watch but not forcibly un-watchable. In contrast, I completely squirmed my way through the truly hideous, Innocence (2000) , as I believe did half the audience. In the end, I actually took to blocking my eyes – so cringeworthingly awful were the geriatric love scenes; while the friends I dragged along almost walked out. So much for my foray into indie cinema… So I was, in a sense, prepared for what this film might be like. Albeit however, hoping that they might do it tastefully – that is, if doing it was required.
Which thankfully, it wasn’t.
But I noticed, rather interestingly, how tense I was; wondering if they were going to broach the subject at all. How anxious I got when there were those scenes where they were alone together – for if they were twenty years younger, they’d have got their clothes well off by now – not still contemplating or skirting around a mere kiss on the lips. I noticed too, how much more I cringed at their awkward behaviour around the other; the flirting, the tears, the confessions. And it got me to thinking about age, of course, but moreover the reasons we find youth so appealing on screen – and obviously, older age markedly less appealing.
For, for all the things that I cringed over, I remarked that I probably wouldn’t have, had the actors been in their late twenties or thirties. It almost would have been a disappointment not to see their smooth, bare, golden bodies pumping their way across the vinyl. A betrayal. And to be brutally honest, isn’t that half the reason that most of us go to see a film starring an actor or actress we like or have a crush on? To see them up close and intimate – the hallmark of modern day cinema. And, dare I go so far as to say, catch a glimpse of their bodies sans costume? Their muscular upper arms? Their washboard stomach?
Surprisingly, there’s also the question of emotion. For most women at least, tears are classically seen as romantic when they are falling from the eyes of a younger man (a young, irresistibly good looking man at that). I might even wager that a younger woman behaving shyly seems, well, cute, and even attractive to most men. And yet, a crying older man, and an insecure older woman just seem kind of pathetic. The romantic appeal snuffed out.
Hence, how to go about a middle-aged romance? To win over the audience, to get them to root for the main characters and leave them wanting them to end up together? It’s a hard ask.
Last chance does it admirably and certainly stands up to par with another great romantic comedy of this genre: Something’s got to give – Diane Keaton and Jack Nicholson’s hilarious stab at life en couple. Last chance is decidedly more melancholy, but this aspect is carried off effortlessly. Both principal actors, Dustin Hoffman and Emma Thompson are at the top of their game and it shows. You really get the sense watching them, of all that they have lived through – pain, triumphs – without the wallowing. Hoffman is impressive with his clever ‘eye’ language. One feels that he literally could do this whole film just with this eyes and he’d still get his point across. Thompson puts us at ease somewhat, with her flippant humour and deliberate refusal of sentiment. Hence the pity side is gone – perhaps to be replaced by empathy – for we can’t help but feel that her experiences are all universal ones in the world of love.
When the film ended, even I was surprised by the feeling of rapport in the cinema. A floaty kind of hope drifting in the air – the lovely anything is possible kind of sentiment that is always pleasant as long for as long as it lasts.
So just when you thought it was over…
There was this film. And there ain’t no vintage wine about it.
After this Hornby spree, I know that I’ll certainly be interested in having a crack at his most recent published work, The Complete Polysyllabic Spree, (2006! Yikes, I am so behind the times…); a collection of his various colomns on favourite books.
