Maybe parts for older actors are a bit more difficult to come by, but why two great performers like Shirley MacLaine and Christopher Plummer agreed to appear in such dross is beyond me. Clearly, given this currently has a rating of 6.5 on IMDb, not everyone agrees with me, now I am not the biggest rom-com fan around, so this starts at a bit of a disadvantage, but give me a descent one and I am more than happy to watch it and give a higher rating if merited.For a start it's listed as a comedy, one little snigger is all I found throughout. The music is just awful, the story is very predictable, it's pretty bad all round.The stars do, at least, try to give it a go but even the true romantics out there may find it hard to find anything to shout about here.

Shirley MacLaine and Christopher Plummer.Oh how sadly they fall between lifeless dialogue and inept scenes and a dispiriting depiction of old age.Shirley's wig was uber distracting as it was sooo bad.Direction was sketchy, the interior car scenes out of filmmaking 101.And offensive - scarpering out of a restaurant without paying the $400 owing? Any thought to the waiter who'd have to pay? And a pathological liar like Elsa getting away without challenge with every single fib? The Oscar winning duo were not served well here.For elder love depicted beautifully watch "Amour".

I didn't expect too much of this but came away pleasantly surprised. Maclaine and Plummer had good chemistry and it was a good reminder that life and feelings don't stop with the first grey hair. I thought the relationships between parents and children were realistic as it's almost a role reversal and the children start treating the parents like children. It was a change watching a love story that didn't involve a handsome young man and a beautiful young woman and showed that love is love no matter what age you are when you find it. Although the plot was predictable, it was a nice ride and one I would recommend for a Sunday afternoon.

American remake of the 2005 Spanish-Argentine co-production "Elsa y Fred" casts Shirley MacLaine and Christopher Plummer as single oldsters living next door to each other in the same New Orleans townhouse, each with over-protective grown children, concerns about money and health, and a textbook of cranky-cute idiosyncrasies. Written and directed at a sitcom level, with dishonest characters and offensive sentiment. A good cast flounders; MacLaine tries creating a goosey, unflappable woman prone to giggling and full of neighborly good cheer, but she's covered much of this territory before (there are also uncomfortable parallels to "Used People"). Mildewy romantic comedy opens with a self-defeating first reel involving a not-funny fender-bender (following shots of Fellini's "La Dolce Vita") before settling into an unconvincing give-and-take between the leads. Not a single sequence rings true, the relatives are boors, while the laugh lines fall like wet sponges around the actors. *1/2 from ****