Seeing those T-Mobile iphone commercials and hearing that Cat Stevens composition for this movie brought back memories of this film. I was only vaguely aware of this film until I was of adult age(I am about the same age as this film and yet it was something of a buried treasure,rarely talked about and mostly popularized by word-of-mouth over the many years after it wwas released),but the concept(and the trailers I spied on another classic film's copy)intrigued me enough to watch this a few years back. What I saw charmed me and affected me in ways that were both disturbing and wonderful.
The story's pretty well accounted for:the romance between spoiled,death-obsessed malcontent teen Harold(Bud Cort)and breezy,life-affiriming octogeneraian Maude(stage legend Ruth Gordon, relatively fresh from her praised work on Rosemary's Baby)is something so refreshing and odd,so nervy and strange that we're near forty years since this show's bow and one could DARE studios to try and make a film like it and get no takers! Director Hal Ashby may've not made much in the way of money or immediate headway to this film,but I feel like this actually added to his accumen or legend as a brilliant,daring filmmaker. A fairly spare supporting cast,with fairly quick turns by Ellen Geer(as a near-suicidal drama queen and potential girlfriend of Harold's)and Tom Skerritt(in a quick scene--really a cameo--as a motorcycle cop)are really the only off-hand memorables in a film that is mostly centerred around the two titular characters,the Cat Stevens compositions and the spare,stark yet muted scenery.
A rare gem of a movie that may vex and confound some--maybe many--but a touching and odd story that truly earns the praise it gets.
The story's pretty well accounted for:the romance between spoiled,death-obsessed malcontent teen Harold(Bud Cort)and breezy,life-affiriming octogeneraian Maude(stage legend Ruth Gordon, relatively fresh from her praised work on Rosemary's Baby)is something so refreshing and odd,so nervy and strange that we're near forty years since this show's bow and one could DARE studios to try and make a film like it and get no takers! Director Hal Ashby may've not made much in the way of money or immediate headway to this film,but I feel like this actually added to his accumen or legend as a brilliant,daring filmmaker. A fairly spare supporting cast,with fairly quick turns by Ellen Geer(as a near-suicidal drama queen and potential girlfriend of Harold's)and Tom Skerritt(in a quick scene--really a cameo--as a motorcycle cop)are really the only off-hand memorables in a film that is mostly centerred around the two titular characters,the Cat Stevens compositions and the spare,stark yet muted scenery.
A rare gem of a movie that may vex and confound some--maybe many--but a touching and odd story that truly earns the praise it gets.