Our Souls at Night (2017)

Cast includes:
CHARACTER	ACTOR/ACTRESS	RATING
Louis Waters	Robert Redford
Addie Moore	Jane Fonda
Gene Moore	Matthias Schoenaerts
Holly Waters	Judy Greer
Dorlan Becker	Bruce Dern
Jamie Moore	Iain Armitage

Review

Veterans Robert Redford and Jane Fonda hook up for the fourth time in their long and illustrious movie careers, more than fifty years after they first played lovers onscreen in The Chase. Since then, they have gone from being representatives for a new generation of young, beautiful and brainy Hollywood stars, to being among the few Hollywood actors from their generation to really age gracefully. And this is why Redford and Fonda are the perfect choice to lead a movie about newfound love and sex for 70-somethings; they both look like they have lived a normal, healthy life, but they are still very much movie star material: Redford still has that boyish smile and Fonda that twinkle in her eye (and a remarkably perky body).

Writing duo Scott Neustadter and Michael H. Weber adapted Kent Haruf's novel of the same name, and although the script has its contrivances (most notably in the segments concerning Fonda's grandson who is coming to stay with her), it is mostly a dignified, humorous and perceptive story which is told here, about how two ageing widowers find each other and express their love in uncharted territory. Redford and Fonda show their class individually and, not least, in tandem. Their best little scene together is one without words: when they're driving back from a trip to Denver. That scene says a lot about both the characters of Louis and Addie, and about two old Hollywood friends.

Our Souls at Night has become a pleasant little film, and it has many similarities with Henry Fonda's swansong On Golden Pond from 1981. That film garnered Henry an Oscar and Jane a nomination (playing his daughter). Let's see how it turns out this time.