LATE BLOOMERS (dir. Julie Gavras) A rather tepid film concerning the emotional problems of growing old. William Hurt and Isabella Rossellini play an extremely rich married couple who question what they have done with their lives, and now that they are approaching sixty, time is running out. I find it difficult to empathize with people who have so much money, influence, and power, but feel that something is lacking. They certainly have more than the vast majority of humanity, yet they continue to fret. Why should I care? Of course, many are anxiously concerned if Rob Kardashian will actually make a commercial success of his new line of socks.

Late Bloomers sounds like a good idea: a film about growing old, treated with humor. A director with a well-known name – Gavras – and actors such as Isabella Rossellini and William Hurt. The ingredients are all there and yet the final dish is unappetizing. What has gone wrong? I saw the movie at a special showing in London, with Ms. Gavras present. The theater – Cinema Lumière, at the French Institute - was absolutely full. After ten minutes, I knew it was going to be a struggle to stay to the end. Nobody was laughing. On screen, what should have been rapier wit turned out to be blunderbuss jokes. The approach was obvious and the humor was primitive, to say the least. Isabella Rossellini is Hurt's wife. She realizes one day that they have become, well, old. And she starts a campaign to minimize the effects of old age: she has handicapped kit installed in their bathroom, she buys for her husband a telephone with large, easy to see buttons, etc. This is supposed to be very funny. Worried that the suffers minor memory losses now and then, she follows her doctor's indications and goes to water aerobics, where lots of people in a swimming pool jump up and down, following an instructor's indications. She is out of step and jumps up when everybody else is jumping down. Again, supposed to be very funny. The whole film suffers from "in your face" attempts at being funny, which it ain't. When it ended, we had been told Ms. Gavras – the director – would appear on stage to answer questions and talk about the movie. Half the audience left the theater in a hurry, including my wife and me. We talked to a few of the people leaving the place and they all told us "It was bad enough to watch the movie… who wants to talk about it?". If only somebody like Woody Allen had directed this

Late Bloomers is about aging, about coping with growing old, about getting close to the Big Six-Zero. I confess being in love with Isabella Rossellini since I realized that Ingrid Bergman had a daughter, and seeing this film I just realized that this story about people getting close to 60 and having a hard time accommodating this reality speaks to me a lot because I am also getting close to 60. So is my liking this film also a sign of age? Maybe, but then my favorite actress and his wonderful partner in this film William Hurt are also part of the same generation as I am, so we are all aging beautifully and making fun by making movies or watching movies about getting close to 60. Life is good! There is a wonderful scene in this film that resumes it all and explains why the film works. The two heroes (he is a formerly famous architect, she is a formerly dedicated wife) decided to separate temporary as part of the aging crisis. They meet at the opening of the art exhibition of their younger son, one of these noisy events taking place in an over-crowded gallery with loud music that kills the reality of sounds and light effects that distorts the reality of visuals. They are far away, they can hardly see each other, they can hear nothing because of the loud music. They need not any of these, as with their looking into each other eyes and a few gestures they can tell each other what happened in the weeks or maybe months since they had separated. These weeks and months are nothing compared to the more than thirty years spent together, and no separation can cancel their love, and no words are needed to communicate.Of course, the scene relies on the wonderful acting talents of Rossellini and Hurt. So does the whole film. Director Julie Gavras (yes, the daughter of ...) received in her hands a script that has a very Woody Allen look, with just an extra touch of sweetness or less cynicism. She decided to put apart or minimize many of the side themes or characters (like the dilemma of the architect faced with a project which maybe exceeds his own capabilities, the agonizing of the three grown-up children of the couple faced with the risk of their parents separating after a life spent together, or the secondary romantic stories which are neglected to the point of making the two characters who enter in relationships with the heroes just pawns in the action) and focus on the coming to the third age story, with all its sweet and bitter consequences. The result is pretty charming, and this is due mainly to the superb acting and to the very inspired music score. Late Bloomers is not a masterpiece, but a minor movie that succeeds to generate genuine emotion, and not only make the audience feel good. Almost unknown to the audiences, hardly distributed, ignored by critics (only five reviews mentioned by IMDb one year almost after the first screenings at the Berlin Festival!) this may prove to be one of the best ignored films of 2012.

Great actors can make or break a movie. In this case they make the movie. A very light one, about getting old (as is suggested in the title of course). Still it's not like it is offering everything easily on the table and lets you have whatever it is you want. But the fact that it is shot digestible, makes it easier to watch.And I. Rosselini (who was present at the Berlin International Film Festival, where the movie played) makes a good team with William Hurt. Both have problems (or issues) and try to resolve them. You might feel more for one of them based on your gender, but the good thing is, that it is not too black and white. Will certainly not appeal to people who like their movies to be fast, but if you like a good drama, you could do a lot worse than this ... :o)