Every once in a while a movie comes along that really surprises me. Before watching Israel Horovitz’s filmmaking debut, My Old Lady, itself an adaptation of his own stage play, I had relatively low expectations. I like Maggie Smith, but she has a tendency to choose roles and scripts that are, at best, warm and fuzzy cliches. My Old Lady is no exception, however, I thought that the Parisian setting could save an otherwise terrible script. Hint: It did not.
The film begins with our protagonist, Mathias (Kevin Kline), traveling to Paris following the death of his estranged father. Though the two had a troubled relationship, his late father left him a valuable apartment in the heart of Paris. As a failed, alcoholic writer without a penny to his name, Mathias intends to sell the apartment as soon as he arrives.
Naturally, things get complicated when Mathias discovers an old woman, Mathilde (Maggie Smith), living in his new apartment. He quickly learns that the apartment is a “viager,” a relic of an antiquated French real estate system. In essence, Mathilde sold the apartment to Mathias’ father while retaining the right to live there until her death. Additionally, ownership of the apartment requires hefty monthly payments to Mathilde. So now, Mathias is broke and owes €2,400 per month to this old woman until Mathilde kicks the bucket.
Mathilde also lives with her daughter, Chloé (Kristin Scott Thomas), an English teacher involved in an affair with one of her students. Chloé and Mathias take a strong disliking to one another, and Chloé resents him for wanting to sell the apartment to a realtor who will likely throw her out and demolish the historic building upon her mother’s death. As Mathilde, Mathias, and Chloé pass the days with one another, dark secrets are revealed, forcing each of them to face their own demons and mortality.
Some stageplays adapt well to the big screen; My Old Lady is not one of them. Israel Horovitz stages the film like a play, without benefitting from the advantages of the format. Paris should have functioned as a character unto itself, with frequent imagery of the city and its inhabitants. Instead, it is simply an under-used backdrop that justifies the peculiarity of “viager” laws. We spend most of our time in the apartment, with the occasional drunken stroll along the River Seine. Nothing about the film feels French or Parisian in any way.
However, the under-utilization of Paris is a small misstep when compared to the film’s most glaring issues. As previously stated, Horovitz stages the entire film like a play. Even worse, he directs his actors as if they are still performing in a theater. There’s nothing wrong with Maggie Smith’s performance per se; her part resembles most characters she has played in the last decade or two: a quick-witted older woman with strong opinions. Even some of her earlier work, like her performance in The Missionary, reflects a similar, albeit younger temperament. That said, she does deliver her lines with a certain melodramatic tone that feels out of place in a dark dramedy. In any case, Maggie Smith is not the main problem; it’s Kevin Kline.
First, I must admit that I am not a fan of Kevin Kline. He is well-respected among actors (or so I’m told), but I will never understand why. Yes, he attended Julliard and has had a long and illustrious career on stage and screen. However, there’s something about his style of acting that always draws me out of the story. It feels disingenuous, forced, and overdone. In some ways, I think he was meant for the theatre. Every performance feels like he is trying to emote to a person sitting in the very last row.
Kevin Kline has never been more insufferable than he is in My Old Lady. The character, which feels like he was taken from every mediocre first draft ever devised, is already detestable. Mathias is a failed writer who drinks too much and has family issues; he waxes poetic in really unimaginative ways; he makes jokes that are meant to be witty and charming, but are actually awkward and pathetic; finally, his character arc could be immediately guessed by anyone who has seen a romantic comedy within the last 20 years.
To be fair, most of these problems are related to the script, not Kevin Kline. Unfortunately, Mr. Kline takes a terribly amateur character and makes him even worse. Every snide comment and drunken diatribe makes me feel like I’m watching a high school play, rather than a film with a budget and respected actors.
Speaking of respected actors, the antagonist-turned-love-interest (this is not really a spoiler as it can be deduced within the first 20 minutes of the film), Chloé, is played by Kristin Scott Thomas, a supremely-talented actress. While her character is relatively two-dimensional from the start, she quickly devolves into something even worse: a childish, whiny imitation of Mathias. This would be fine if it made any sense, but it doesn’t. The change in Chloé’s attitude and general outlook on life is sudden and jarring. To add insult to injury, it is painfully obvious that this change was included to facilitate romantic feelings between Chloé and her newly-discovered soulmate, Mathias.
You may feel like I’m being too harsh, but it really is an unbearable film. It received a number of positive reviews when it first came out, for which I have no explanation. My Old Lady wreaks of shallow pretention from start to finish. Obnoxious characters compliment an obnoxious and predictable story. Strange tonal shifts make a supposed black comedy feel cumbersome at best. The chipper, perky music makes these shifts in tone even weirder. Finally, the mediocre theatre direction means that My Old Lady isn’t even entertaining as mindless cinema; on the contrary, it was an actual chore to finish the film. By the time the plot twists came into play, I had already lost interest in the story line.
In short, if you appreciate stage plays that have been poorly-adapted to film, terrible acting, poor character development, pretentious dialogue, and movies based in Paris that almost never show Paris, then My Old Lady is the perfect film for you.
Rating: ★ out of 5
If you’d still like to watch this movie, My Old Lady (2014) is currently available to rent, stream, or purchase via Amazon here.