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Comedy, Drama, Romance 92 min PG
Rotten Tomatoes86%Metacritic62IMDb
They were meant to be. But exactly what they were meant to be is not quite clear.
A deadpan young man obsessed with death meets an eccentric septuagenarian who teaches him to live life to the fullest.
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Spare, intimate, character-led and prestige.
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Written by TMDB members; each links to the original. Not part of Taste Buds's numbers.
**Knowing how to live or knowing how to die are virtues, difficult and debatable themes that a film almost never has the courage to address.** Harold is a young man, just arrived at adulthood, who has a morbid fascination with death: he drives hearses, goes to funerals for “fun”, rehearses his own suicide a thousand and one times. He will change under the influence of an elderly woman, whose desire to live every moment to the fullest leads her to very incorrect attitudes, such as “borrowing” other people's things without even bothering to ask for them. In a way, both have to learn from each other, and the film shows us this mutual learning process, and the special bond that is created between them. Black comedies are never consensual, as you know, but this one is especially touching and charged with a positive spirit. The film tackles difficult, even hard themes, with a certain spirit of informality and lightness that, however, does not reduce or diminish them: what it means to die, how to live, how to enjoy life or know how to die with dignity, how to educate and understand a child, anyway. For this reason, and due to the dark comic load, it is not an easy film and will displease
Read the whole review on TMDBSo poor little rich kid "Harold" (Bud Cort) really does like a bit of attention seeking - constantly vying for the recognition of his mother by faking every more outlandish suicide attempts. Things is, she (Vivian Pickles) is pretty impervious to his antics and so he seeks something to alleviate his boredom elsewhere... He starts attending funerals. That's where he encounters the eccentric "Maude" (Ruth Gordon) who also has a penchant for the ceremonies - and for also pinching a car from the cemetery for a bit of a joyride afterwards. As his mother increases her activities in finding him a love match, "Harold" finds himself and his new friend spending more and more time together and he begins to learn that her live today policy is vibrant, exhilarating and contagious! Their bond grows ever stronger as the pair begin to rely more and more on each other, even to fall in love! There's a great dynamic between Cort and Gordon here. She brings out the best in her young acting companion with confident and engaging performances from both delivering a story that is funny, poignant and surreal - in almost equal measure. At times it's a touch on the wordy side, but Pickles is fun as the mothe
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If you loved this film, the television, the book, the music, the game.
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