2019 Was the Year of Great Films About Aging
“We met this truck driver named Leroy outside of Baltimore. He told me that looking back, it doesn’t matter how old you are. Life always feels the same length — like both forever and not very long.”
I turned thirty this year. I know that’s not old by any metric, but it’s the oldest I’ve ever been. As I cross the threshold from young adult to just plain adult, I’ve thought a lot about my inevitable march toward death’s cold, uncaring hand. The frailty of life is both its biggest tragedy and its greatest source of beauty, as evidenced by the lovely, melancholy films that wrestled with the topic this past year. I’m not sure whether 2019 contained more movies about aging than previous years or if I’m just noticing the subject matter more than I did in my twenties. Either way, as I think back on the year in cinema, it’s the theme that sticks out to me the most.
The quote at the top of the article is from Colewell, an indie drama about a woman in her sixties who’s worked the same job at a small post office for thirty-five years when she discovers that her office is being shut down. The lead role is played magnificently by Karen Allen of Raiders of the Lost Ark fame. Allen’s character is forced to choose between retirement and relocation, both of which are unacceptable. The film deals with the comfort of daily routine and the difficulty of adapting to its interruption. It slipped under the radar this year, but it’s a beautiful story that’s well worth your time at only seventy-nine minutes long.
Colewell reminded me a lot of Toy Story 4, a deeply thoughtful look at retirement disguised as a fun children’s movie. Woody has always been a character that’s had trouble adapting to change. Throughout the film, he grasps onto the life he’s always known while everyone around him is telling him to chill out and move on to the next phase. His reluctance to admit that he’s fulfilled the purpose of his existence is heartbreaking to watch, and it builds to perhaps the most emotional ending of any movie this year. Tom Hanks’ portrayal of Mr. Rogers in A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood is commendable, but this is the Hanks performance to see this year.
Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time in Hollywood and Pedro Almodovar’s Pain and Glory each focus on an artist with a stalling career, the substances he uses to deal with his mid-life crisis, and the impact on his relationships. Leonardo DiCaprio’s Rick Dalton is an alcoholic actor who struggles to land the leading man roles that defined his early career. Antonio Banderas’ Salvador Mallo is an aging director lacking inspiration and zeal who turns to heroin to numb his emotional and physical pain. Both actors deliver incredibly relatable performances that convey the melancholy of aging and the hope of new opportunities. Both characters find a path out of their mid-life crisis by investing in existing relationships and taking chances on new ones.
Netflix’s The Irishman is probably the 2019 film that addresses aging most directly. The first three hours of Martin Scorsese’s greatest gangster film really only exist to properly frame the final thirty minutes, a devastating meditation on regret and the meaning of life. Decrepit and alone, Robert De Niro’s character ponders the significance of his life and the choices he’s made. His successful career in the mafia has left him with nothing. His friends are dead (some by his own hand), and his daughters despise him. Major events earlier in life seem insignificant compared to the loneliness haunting the remainder of his existence. Scorsese posits that relationships are vastly more important than career achievements, and he leaves viewers wondering if he wishes he had invested more in his own relationships earlier in life. If you have no one to share your life with, what’s the fucking point?
These films have all helped me contemplate my own mortality this past year. Some others worth your time that I didn’t mention here are The Farewell, Diane, Ad Astra, Strange Negotiations, and Dolemite Is My Name. As I look back at my three decades on this planet and think about these movies, I find myself identifying with a lot of these characters. I’ve put a big emphasis on my career over the past decade, and I want to focus more on relationships in the next. This doesn’t come easily for me as I tend to be a bit of a loner who prefers familiar situations and spends significant time in dark theaters. I’ll let you know how that goes if I make it to forty.
Michael Dixon is a mild mannered accountant by day and a mild mannered movie watcher by night. He will not do your taxes for you. He lives in Austin, Texas with his lovely television and collection of fine whiskies. You can’t purchase his book anywhere because it doesn’t exist.
