Today a report is being published by a Parliamentary Committee about the social consequences of people living longer. Apparently the report estimates that someone born in 2007 in the U.K. is likely to live until they are a hundred. So the elderly are in the news again. But not only in the news \u2013 on the screen as well. There have been three recent films in the cinemas, about and presumably designed to attract, the \u2018grey pound\u2019. We have seen each of them. The first was \u2018The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel\u2019 , about the adventures of a group of old people played by much loved British actors who move to an Indian retirement home. <\/p>\n
\nThe second was \u2018Quartet\u2019 with again a selection of favourite actors performing as onetime professional musicians and singers living in a care home exclusively designed for them. Very good ensemble playing, with for me a delightful performance by Tom Courtenay. Last night we saw the third of these films about people struggling with old age : \u2018Song for Marion\u2019 with stand-out performances from Vanessa Redgrave and Terence Stamp, but otherwise hampered by a poor screenplay and the waste of Christopher Ecceleston. <\/p>\n
The first two films were played for laughs and sentiment and the music in \u2018Quartet\u2019 was superbe, but I found the third film maudlin and unconvincing, and am surprised that most of the reviews were kind in an indulgent sort of way. \u2018These grey-pound grabbers\u2019 said one reviewer, \u2018have largely inhabited the same stifling tonal range: somewhere between cute and cosy, as though the target audience were incapable of processing anything challenging at 2pm on a wet Wednesday and prefer to be tickled under the chin for 90 minutes\u2019. That\u2019s how I certainly felt about \u2018Song of Marion\u2019 \u2013 which we saw at 3.p.m. on a Monday afternoon! It was clich\u00e9d and patronising, and when I was moved with a death as one is by any death and the attempt to come to terms with it for the survivors, I felt I was being used by the film. <\/p>\n
Each film tried to portray older people as still being able to enjoy themselves, which is good! So much of the media coverage of age is about disappointment and struggle. There\u2019s plenty of that, and I may be so downbeat in these blogs that I endorse such a simplistic caricature, and if that is so I regret it. I haven\u2019t quite got to the stage of counting my blessings so that they outweigh the disadvantages of age, but I\u2019m on that road. I think what all of us should resist \u2013 fight against \u2013 is the idea that each of us can be described entirely in terms of being old. We may be \u2018pensioners\u2019 and \u2018grey pound grabbers\u2019 but more than either, we are people.<\/p>\n
Bryan<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Today a report is being published by a Parliamentary Committee about the social consequences of people living longer. Apparently the report estimates that someone born in 2007 in the U.K. is likely to live until they are a hundred. So the elderly are in the news again. But not only in the news \u2013 on the screen as well. There have been three recent films in the cinemas, about and presumably designed to attract, the \u2018grey pound\u2019. We have seen each of them. The first was \u2018The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel\u2019 , about the adventures of a group of old <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-669","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"yoast_head":"\n