Harold and Maude (1971)

Release date: 1971-12-20
Country: USA
Language: English
Director: Hal Ashby
Production Co: Mildred Lewis and Colin Higgins Productions, Paramount Pictures
Genre: Comedy, Romance, Drama
Rating: 7.9/10
Length: 1h 31min

Storyline

Young adult Harold Chasen, solitary and friendless by choice, is obsessed with death, this fascination manifesting itself in he staging his own fake suicides, driving a hearse and attending funerals, even of people he doesn't know, all to the chagrin of his exasperated wealthy mother with who he lives. Mrs. Chasen is determined for Harold to be "normal", including she sending him into therapy to deal with his issues and finding him a girlfriend through a computer dating service. It is at a series of funerals that Harold meets Maude, on the cusp of her eightieth birthday, she who too attends funerals of strangers. Unlike Harold, Maude is obsessed with life - her own life to be more precise - she doing whatever she wants to please herself, damned what others may think or how they may be affected. Since she can't take material possessions with her, she is more interested in experiences, with whatever material possessions she has - often "borrowed" without asking - only to further those ...

Plot Keywords

death, existentialism, older woman younger man relationship, depression, coming of age, misfit, nihilism, funeral, ambulance, motorcycle cop, cemetery, california, hara kiri, dysfunctional family, anti conformity, black comedy, mother son relationship, intergenerational friendship, may december romance, holocaust survivor

Short Review

The fact that [it] isn't very funny and, like its 80-year-old heroic, long outlives its necessary life, is less important than the fact that the characters frequently react gently or like credible human beings to the script's impossible notions.