My Old Lady

Trailers for My Old Lady - and even the film title itself - lead one to believe this is a comedy. It's not. Instead, it's a claustrophobic film about the wide-reaching effects an affair can have on families. The lead actors - Maggie Smith, Kevin Kline, Kristin Scott-Thomas - are not well served by the script. They seem to have their motivations yanked about willy- nilly with no regard for what happened just a few scenes before. The same person wrote the stage play, the screenplay, AND directed the film. It might have been better to have had a different director who could have addressed the astonishing leaps of credibility the audience keeps having to make. Even after all the revelatory speeches, I just didn't care what happened to these two-dimensional people. Not recommended.

Sadly, this film is a turkey, which even Maggie Smith hasn't been able to save, which is saying something. The storyline is good, the scenery gorgeous, but the script, the score and Kevin Kline let it down completely. It is the cheesiest portrayal of Paris I have ever seen, smothered with cliché accordion music throughout. Kevin Kline, who I loved in "A fish called Wanda" is miscast here. His acting of an emotionally damaged person is ruined by his hamming up and his apposite humour. Kristin Scott Thomas does her best, which does well, but her character is not totally believable. Maggie Smith is great, as usual, although I don't think she is a credible French woman (far too English). Best avoided, unless you are in a need of a filler.

My husband and I love Paris, Kevin Kline and Maggie Smith; so a film with all three was a must on our viewing list. However, we came across some pretty bad reviews and wondered whether we should see it at all. The cinema was a small one and, as we decided to go to the early afternoon show, it wasn't very crowded. We were delighted to find the three leading actors lived up to their usual high standard; the story line worked for us right to the end; and the views of Paris as well as the interior of the apartment managed to capture the mood very well. From finding it really quite amusing at first, the film took a rather darker turn two thirds of the way in; but we felt that the way it was handled sent out a very real and necessary message. I presume it could be classed as a black comedy...but this should not put you off from seeing it, and one does not leave feeling it was a waste of time or money!

I really don't know how to describe this film, because it looked so miserable since the first scene appeared on the screen. then most of the time, the scenes were shot in the dark rooms of the apartment, then the old-fart candidate Kevin Kline with his white beard all around, facing Maggie Smith, the old lady, so old but still so amazingly knows how to delver her dialog and at same time acting so wonderfully, talking about many things of the past that actually got nothing very interesting at all. the Paris foreground and background where the apartment located also looked so miserable and constant overcast with gloomy and dim lightness. The dialog is boring, the acting also boring, all the characters in this miserable film also extremely boring and uninteresting. there's really nothing big deal enough to allow you have the least chance to feel connected and interested. My only question about this film is why people would have invested their money to produce this pointless film? Why we would be interested in watching a loser's journey to Paris where an old apartment became his inheritance after his father's death? Why we have to watch some disenchanted miseries of a miserable story that neither heavy enough nor light enough to make this film really going somewhere? There's nothing really want to tell and nothing really important to allow the audience to absorb or to be interested enough to get connected. This is a film that should never have been produced, just a weird taste like the diet coke that always stays in your mouth, no matter how you drink it, one sip or the whole can.