THE GOOD, THE NOT SO BAD AND THE UGLY: AFI 2015, Part 4: Married Without Children – 45 Years and Macbeth

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Warning: SPOILERS

45 years 2Is this the year of the older, older woman?

For some reason, a number of films have been released this year with a central character that is probably not only not in any recognized quadrant of the four that studios so dream of capturing, it’s a target audience many producers probably consider non-existent: a female in her somewhat twilight years.

These include I’ll See You In My Dreams (Blythe Danner as a widow discovering that life isn’t over by any stretch of the imagination); Grandma (Lily Tomlin as a grandmother helping her granddaughter raise money for an abortion); Youth (Jane Fonda as an aging actress desperately trying to hold on to her career); The Woman in the Van (curmudgeon Maggie Smith as…a curmudgeon in a van).

And now we have Charlotte Rampling as Kate Mercer in 45 Years, a heartbreaking and at times emotionally devastating film about a wife who has to reevaluate her more than four decade long marriage in the days leading up to her and her husband’s anniversary.

It’s a roster that perhaps is worthy of an entry in the Guinness Books. Read the rest of this entry »