Oldies in love
Liz Hodgkinson prefers the joy of fictional late-life love to the cold reality
Romance v reality
At one time, all the lovers portrayed in literature were young or very young, as in Romeo and Juliet.
These lovers may have been star-crossed, the love may have been unrequited or it may have led to happy ever after, but it was, without exception, young love.
There was no such thing as love, sex or romance between older people. But then, around the 1990s, everything began to change.
Oldies, whether recent retirees or much older, were suddenly being allowed to have romantic feelings, to fall in love again and yes, even to have sex with each other. No longer were they grumpy old grandpas or grandmas fulminating from their rocking chairs about the olden days. They were leading exciting lives of their own.
One of the first British TV series in this new genre was As Time Goes By, starring Judi Dench and Geoffrey Palmer as Jean Pargetter and Lionel Hardcastle, former lovers now in their 70s whose lives come together again after 40 years apart. The storyline was that they first met in 1952, fell head over heels in love with each other and then re-met when Lionel took his memoirs to be typed by Jean’s typing agency.
This gentle comedy was a surprise hit, not only with older audiences but viewers of all ages. One has to say that much of the success of the series, which ran from 1992 to 2005, was mainly down to the superb acting of the main characters.
This was followed by Last Tango in Halifax, where two former lovers, Alan and Celia, again now in their 70s, are reunited through social media. This series, starring Derek Jacobi as Alan and Anne Reid as Celia, aired from 2012 to 2016. A new series is planned for 2020, proving that older love has become an established theme for television comedy drama.
Last Tango was based on the true story of screenwriter Sally Wainwright’s mother’s late-life romance, culminating in her second marriage. Geriatric romcoms, as the genre is disparagingly known, are by no means all based in fantasy.
In films, too, there has been a considerable crop of movies in recent years featuring senior citizens falling in love. The breakthrough was The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, where Douglas Ainslie, played by Bill Nighy, falls
hopelessly in love with Evelyn Greenslade, played once again by Judi Dench. This 2011 film, where a group of retirees move to a dilapidated hotel in India was a slow burn but eventually became a huge hit and international success.
The movie, based on Deborah Moggach’s 2004 novel, wanted to show that older people still had much left to live for, including – but not limited to – finding new loves or re-igniting old ones.
Retired High Court Judge
Graham Dashwood, secretly gay, has come to India in the hope of finding his long-ago Indian lover. Madge Hardcastle, played by Celia Imrie, is cynically looking for a rich man to marry. This film was followed by The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, with the same ensemble cast of mainly older actors. It has now become a much-loved franchise.
Another hit was the 2014 Grand Budapest Hotel, where Ralph Fiennes plays a middle-age concierge attending to the intimate needs of his aristocratic, female guests of a certain age, including Madame D, played – with prosthetics – by Tilda Swinton.
Given that everybody loves a love story, what is the difference between romantic comedies starring young people and the ones with rather older characters.
First of all, in senior romcoms the characters come with much baggage. They are certainly not starting off with a blank slate, but have previous relationships, children and grandchildren, careers, family difficulties and may also have serious health issues. This makes their back stories interesting and complex, giving more scope for drama.
Then sex, hardly ever a problem for younger lovers, becomes a hurdle to jump over. There is frequent mention of erectile dysfunction and Viagra where the men are concerned.
The men in these romcoms are often anxious about their performance or lack of it. The women too are conscious that their bodies are not as taut and nubile as they were half a century ago.
Although they appeared revolutionary at first, babyboomer romances have now become a box-office staple, putting older bums back on seats. These cinemagoers, who may no longer be able to relate to young film romances, lap up the older love stories.
But the genre is by no means always light and fluffy. In the latest late-life romance, The Good Liar, the story becomes considerably darker.
In The Good Liar, two people nudging 80, supposedly looking for love, meet through social media, enjoy some dates together and, before long, Roy, the male character played by Ian Mckellen, moves in with Betty, a wealthy widow and retired academic played by Helen Mirren.
Although at first this seems like yet another elderly internet romance, it soon becomes apparent that both parties have a sinister agenda. We have to wait until the end of the film to realise just how sinister it is.
This 2019 film moves the oldie romance into another category – serious crime. In order to work, dramas depicting older people in romantic relationships rely on consummate acting skills. Where young romances are played out on screen, it is almost enough for the actors to be good-looking.
When Brigitte Bardot was in her heyday, filmgoers flocked to see her ravishing beauty and were not that bothered about the clunky acting. With senior romances, it is the quality of the acting that makes the story believable – or not.
In films and books of the past, if an older man had a love affair, it was almost always with a young innocent girl. Films like Lolita, based on Vladimir Nabokov’s 1955 novel, and Last Tango in Paris, starring Marlon Brando and Maria Schneider, have creepy older men lusting after vulnerable young girls.
The older woman was hardly ever seen as a viable romantic possibility. But that has all changed, with women up to 80 now being seen as desirable by men of the same age or even younger, as in Grand Budapest Hotel.
In books, Dinner with Edward is a delightful real-life story, where New York Post journalist Isabel Vincent, with her marriage falling apart, takes up with 92-year-old widower Edward. He invites her to his place for delicious meals and to go over their lives together.
There is no overt romance but a hint of a tendresse as Edward lovingly takes all day to shop for and prepare feasts for his special guest. The recipes are included in the book, lending added piquancy.
As older or rekindled love becomes a fictional and film cliché, how far do these stories reflect real situations today?
I would say, they do and they don’t. There are now many dating sites aimed at the over-50s and ever more older people are hoping for a second, or even third or beyond, chance at love.
We are healthier and longer-lived than ever before and many of us are divorced or widowed and not finished yet, at least in our minds.
But the reality is that the chances of meeting somebody who fits the bill, or most of it, are remote. Why?
Because, over the years, we have become set in our ways, fussy, intolerant, with all our character flaws rampant. Nobody we meet is ever quite handsome enough, interesting enough or rich enough.
In the novel Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout, the spiky but oddly vulnerable, widowed 74-year-old Olive goes out on a series of dates with similarly widowed Jack Kennison. All she can do is find fault with him. She is cross that he interrupts her routine.
Because of thoughts like this, oldie romances often fizzle out almost before they have started. But they make compelling viewing and reading!
‘Geriatric romcoms, as the genre is disparagingly known, are by no means all based in fantasy’