Cast: Ruth Gordon, Bud Cort

Director: Hal Ashby

Screenplay: Colin Higgins

Running time: 1 hr 31 mins

Genre: Comedy/Drama



CRITIQUE:


Just how creditable a film could be when a) it’s been gushingly praised by Cameron Diaz in There’s Something About Mary as “the greatest love story of our time”, b) indefatigably referenced in the Wes Anderson canon and c) had its soundtrack hijacked by Ricky Gervais for his sitcom Extras? The impacts are wide-ranging, but perhaps nobody expected such waves of influence back in 1971 when Harold and Maude was strictly a film about a peculiar relationship between a suicidal twenty-year-old male and a happy-go-lucky seventy-nine-year-old female, a striking, if not shocking, pair that – in the movie’s disgruntled Reverend – makes one “vomit”. Sure, Hollywood had seen a horny Bonnie and an impotent Clyde in a lunchtime tryst, fresh graduate Benjamin Braddock sexing bored, rich, suburban wife Mrs Robinson – but never had a scene so deliberately manifested onscreen a boy blowing bubbles into the camera with an elderly spinster on his side, both naked on a bed in a post-coital bliss. Irreverent as the central premise may be, it fittingly embodied the counter-culture of the pre-Godfather Hollywood era, liberalising taboo subject matters, unleashing exploitation materials in this period of sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll. Where Bonnie and Clyde and Easy Riders legitimised violence and spitting against authority, Harold and Maude along with its chum The Graduate portrayed youth alienation and mockery against the expectations of society. Only that the former sticks two bigger fingers to the triviality of relationships.


But sex isn’t really the major linking factor between two lovelorn individuals. It’s more sophisticated than that. For a material that could easily swerve into disastrous territory, the script possesses a surprising knowing and poignancy that it actually cares for the development of its two major leads. Bud Cort’s Harold harbours a deep existential angst physicalized through his faked suicide attempts, a desperate plea for his flamboyant couture-dressed mother, whilst Ruth Gordon’s Maude is half girlish, half veteran and a total force of nature, living every day without limits – both personifies the opposite ends of character hues yet sharing a subtle understanding of death, as the pair’s meeting happens in funerals, of all places. The dark, demented humour (Cat Stevens’ Tea for the Tillerman plays in a graveyard scene) is wonderfully tailored into its storytelling fabric without being off-putting, and scenes of quirky charm and light-hearted moments pull this one from slimy sentimentalism. If you doubt this film’s directing skill, see the finale which ingeniously employs cross-cutting between two temporal events and closing with an offbeat yet delightful coda, Harold walking away playing his banjo. There couldn’t possibly be a more perfect ending. And perhaps Diaz might just be right.


VERDICT:

A pitch-perfect little gem that, even three decades from its release, remains refreshing for its portrayal of youth alienation, loneliness and defiance against expectations of society. Harold and Maude brims with dark humour, wit, perceptiveness and poignancy. A winning, life-affirming comedy that certainly knows no age.



RATING: A+