Movies for Seniors
“If you want a happy ending, that depends, of course, on where you stop your story.” —Orson Welles
When I google “Movies for older adults,” “Belfast” pops up as one of AARP’s movies for grownups. I research further and learn that this 2021 movie has won multiple awards, including an Oscar for best screenplay.
Among the words critics use to describe it are sweet, neat, light, vivid, soulful, feel-good, rosy, and cozy.
Just the thing for a Friday night date with my husband, I think.
We locate it on Amazon Prime and settle in. We are ready for a pleasant 97 minutes enjoying a movie based on Kenneth Branagh’s memories of his life as a boy in Belfast during The Troubles in Northern Ireland in 1969.
We turn on subtitles to help us understand the Irish brogue.
First-time actor Jude Hill as nine-year-old Buddy is a delight. So is Judith Dench as his grandmother. Her grief, at several points in the movie, is stoic and unforgettable. We see the events through Buddy’s eyes, so the movie is more about the moments of violence and chaos he experiences than about the larger political issues of the time.
Fifteen minutes in, my husband turns to me and asks in disbelief, “Are you really thinking of this as a movie for older people?”
With its Irish accents, black-and-white photography, and rapidly shifting scenes, the movie is hard work to watch.
“I don’t know yet,” I answer him, and I turn back to the screen. But I already have my doubts. Will my peers really want to watch a movie that is this much work?
Half an hour later my husband dozes off for a few minutes.
Billy, a Protestant, lives in a neighborhood of both Protestants and Catholics. During riots, the homes of some of his Catholic neighbors are attacked and damaged.
He has a crush on his classmate Katherine, a Catholic. He works hard to get good enough test scores to earn a desk next to hers. Their relationship is indeed sweet, cozy, and rosy. So is his relationship with his grandfather, who gives him advice on his love life.
But the rest of the movie feels jerky and fragmented. I struggle with understanding the Irish accents, trying to read the subtitles fast enough to keep up.
Life in Belfast becomes unsafe for Buddy’s family. They struggle with the decision of whether to stay in Belfast or move—to England or even perhaps to Australia or Canada. That struggle provides the central tension of the movie.
It closes with these words of dedication on the screen:
“For the ones who stayed.
For the ones who left.
And for all the ones who were lost.”
Those words point to the core of the movie—an empathy for people who have been displaced from the location that they have called home for generations, especially the people of Northern Ireland.
As the closing dedication plays on the screen, I wonder whether I should recommend this movie. It has enlarged my world and my heart. For 97 minutes, I have identified with a family struggling with decisions amid violence erupting in their neighborhood. I have seen that world through the eyes of a child. I have delighted in the work of Jude Hill and Judi Dench. But the movie was not an easy watch. It was not the feel-good movie I expected.
That said, I guess I will leave it for readers to decide whether it is the movie for them.
If readers are looking for a light-hearted, feel-good movie, “Queen Bees,” which I watched a day earlier on Amazon Prime, might be a match.
It is also a 2021 movie and just four minutes longer than “Belfast.” It stars Ellen Burstyn as Helen Wilson, a fiercely independent widow who resists moving to a senior living center until a kitchen fire forces her to live there temporarily while her home is being repaired. It was inspired by the producer’s own grandmother finding a second chance at love after moving to a retirement community.
Helen encounters high-school-like cliques and power struggles, with one difference. Resident Sally tells her, “In high school we graduate. Here we die.”
“Queen Bees” touches on aging topics (illness, loss of loved ones, loss of independence) with a light touch. As one critic said, “It is lightweight but likable.” The plot is predictable, but the acting of a veteran cast saves it from being a total Hallmark movie.
“Queen Bees” is many of those words used to describe “Belfast”: sweet, neat, light, vivid, feel-good, rosy, and cozy.
But, in this case, those words are true.
Adapted from Creative Aging by Carol Van Klompenburg, published 2023, available from Amazon.