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While significant roles for older actresses continue
to pretty much vanish with age, Anthony Byrne's How About
You is an immensely pleasurable unanticipated surprise to
the contrary, spotlighting, not just one, but a whole treasure
trove ensemble of one of cinema's least appreciated natural
resources. Vanessa Redgrave, Brenda Fricker, Imelda Staunton,
and the late Joan O'Hara, to whom the film is dedicated,
charm their way into audience hearts as the eccentric, demanding
and often delightfully insufferable residents of a once
elegant Irish old age home, now in disarray.***
Nearly at wit's end presiding over her contentious
charges that have managed to drive most of the other residents
from the home, is Kate (Orla Brady), a fussy young widow
suddenly called away during the approaching Christmas holidays,
to tend to a family emergency. Kate reluctantly leaves her
younger rebellious slacker sister Ellie (Hayley Atwell)
in charge, a situation which results in a series of wild
calamities, both in the home and the community.***
Each of these difficult women is fleshed out with warmth,
humor, and a kind of tough love compassion. From Redgrave's
tipsy former diva stage starlet to the Nightingale sisters
Heather (Brenda Fricker) and Hazel (Imelda Staunton), who
are not really old at all but as pretend seniors, find their
voluntary isolation from the real world comforting.***
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Final Words:
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Written by Jean Pasley and
adapted from the short story, The Hardcore, by Maeve Binchy,
How About You dazzles with its gutsy geriatric group portrait
of these female elders of the tribe. And who have much to
teach their younger counterparts about existential euphoria,
righteous rage, and embracing the things that matter most
in life sooner than later. And about the tremendous depth
of feeling inhabiting these seasoned souls tempered with lifelong
wisdom, whether on or off the screen, that declares in no
uncertain terms, get used to it.*** |
