MY OLD LADY
My Old Lady
The burst bubble that was the U.S. housing market has provided fodder for excellent documentaries (such as the Oscar-winning Inside Job in 2010) and dramas like 99 Homes, which screened at the Toronto festival to rave reviews. But to get a happy story about mortgages you have to travel further afield.
In France, homes can be sold as “un viager,” in which the seller gets a lump sum and a monthly stipend from the buyer. The catch is that the seller also gets to remain in the property for the rest of his or her life. The transaction is only finalized when the seller dies. Puts the mort in mortgage, doesn’t it?
The most famous viager agreement began in 1965 between 90-yearold Jeanne Calment and lawyer André-François Raffray, then 47. He agreed to pay Calment 2,500 francs a month for the rest of her life for her apartment. But he died in 1995, while Calment outlived him by two years, finally passing away at the age of 122. (Her longevity record has yet to be broken; the nearest contender is still six years away.)
There’s a touch of that story in Israel Horowitz’s play My Old Lady, which he has adapted into a movie of the same name. Kevin Kline stars as Mathias Gold, a penniless New Yorker who has been left nothing in his estranged father’s will except some French novels and a Paris apartment.
When he shows up to take possession, he finds an elderly English lady, Mathilde Girard (Maggie Smith), living there. He assumes she’s a tenant. She fills him in on la vie de viaget. It’s a game of destiny, he learns: If the seller dies quickly, it’s your destiny to replace them; if not, it’s your destiny to pay them to help them live.
Mathilde allows him to stay on for a while as her tenant; when he claims penury, she pockets his watch as collateral. But he’s even more miffed when he discovers that her daughter, Chloé (Kristin Scott Thomas), is also living there. From the moment they meet — accidentally, in the bathroom, which is never how you want to start a relationship — they rub each other the wrong way.
My Old Lady is Horovitz’s directing debut, unless you count the monologue he shot in 2002, about his reactions to the 9/11 attacks. The 75-year-old brings a light touch to the story, and while the blocking and pacing sometimes betray its theatrical origins, it’s still an enjoyable romp. Scott Thomas and Kline are both fluently bilingual, although there’s winking humour in watching the latter pretend to speak English only, giving up on French pronunciation and referring to potential apartment buyer François Roy as “wawa.”
As the three characters get to know each other, family secrets are spilled, often over an expensive bottle of wine. “I was born with a silver knife in my back,” Mathias says of his childhood. He and Chloé will eventually build some mutual respect out of the fact that both feel they weren’t shown enough love from their fathers.
For a time it starts to feel like the three of them are angling to see who can reveal the biggest shocker about their past. But, this being France, 85% of them have to do with adulterous relationships and hence really aren’t that shocking after all.
The ending, which even those of a nearsighted bent will see coming for some time, may also strike some as a bit too pat. In fact, remembering Kline’s role in A Fish Called Wanda 25 years ago, I rather hoped My Old Lady would turn into a farce in which he tried to bump off poor Madame Girard. (Surely someone has tried this scheme!) But perhaps there’s enough tragedy in real estate these days without adding another fictional level. Might as well finish on a note of joie de viaget. ΣΣΣ