HAROLD AND MAUDE Review
A film dedicated to irreverence of life, Hal Ashby’s HAROLD AND MAUDE feels like a strange breath of fresh of air even in these difficult present times of ours. Created in the glorious 70’s era of filmmaking, where even the most mainstream of movie releases had a bit of genuine edge or surrealness to it, Ashby (alongside writer Colin Higgins) craft a sweet ode to the bright spots of life, even those created from the darkest of times.
For Harold (Bud Cort, disturbingly a ringer for Asa Butterfield), his life thrives on the macabre topic of death as he spends his days staging elaborate “suicides” throughout his mother’s (a wonderfully stuck up Vivian Pickles) expansive mansion. When not annoying his mother with those suicidal mock ups, Harold spends his days driving his hearse around town to various funerals approaching these ceremonies of death as something close to watching a movie in a theater. Seemingly content with his outcast status, it’s not long before our young protagonist lands in the orbit of his future partner in crime, Maude (Ruth Gordon), an elderly woman who attends funerals, steals cars (and trees), and just generally lives life with the recklessness and vitality that rivals that of a teenager at spring break. On the surface, the two couldn’t be more different in life approaches: Harold with his fascination with death and Maude with her unlimited zest for life; however, as Harold and Maude begin to hang out more, Harold discovers that life has something (and someone) for everyone.
With never ending soundtrack support from the breezy Cat Stevens, HAROLD AND MAUDE is a splendid time hanging out with some weirdos. For a movie about a young 20 something man hanging out, and eventually falling in love, with a 80 something year old woman, Ashby and co.’s film offers one of the more genuinely authentic portrayals of friendship on the silver screen thanks in large part to Higgins’ highly enjoyable dialogue and the two central performances. Indeed, Mr. Cort and Ms. Gordon make for a winning duo delivering laughs and humanity in their assuredly bizarre characters. While Cort puts in a performance of young man that is as hilariously theatrical as it is achingly yearning, Gordon herself delivers a memorably delightful performance of a woman no longer worried about the troubles of tomorrow. With Maude, Gordon delivers her lines with such youthful jest and energy that the characters comedic moments hit just as hard as her slowly revealed tragedies further elevating Higgins’ screenplay into a beautiful, if by now understood, tale of learning how to live life to the fullest. While the writer reveals certain character faults and tragic backstories in slightly abrupt fashion, he passes with flying colors in depicting a relationship based on genuine care and companionship.
A true “hangout” movie through and through, Ashby nevertheless finds time to craft an eye-catching portrait of two outsiders with many scenes displaying a true sense of comedic mise-en-scene, particularly in regards to Harold’s persistent “suicide” performances that occur everywhere on his mother’s expansive mansion. As a result, HAROLD AND MAUDE’s visuals help create a film world that is sunnily bizarre, like some kind of pleasantly spaced saturday morning cartoon. Be that as it may, the film’s pace and flow can feel a bit episodic as it gleefully hops from one comedic antic to another abruptly ending on a somber note only to jubilantly go back to its breezy if bittersweet good times. It’s in these moments where the dark realities of life converge with the more silly antics of a young man and old woman that HAROLD AND MAUDE doesn’t always land, but when they do successfully overlap, the film becomes a truly original portrayal of an offbeat friendship.
Despite these moments of staccato-like pacing, Ashby and his crew deliver a genuine feel good film that operates on its own weird terms. HAROLD AND MAUDE may make for unwieldy partners and cinematic undertakings at first, but give it some time and give into the eclecticness and what you have on your hands is a damn good time!
4/5
