Elsa & Fred (2014)

Really Surprised!

Good start, but then it gets ruined

It's entirely possible that sending the audience out feeling lousy was intentional

If you're interested in the topic at hand, you should just watch it and judge yourself because the reviews have gone very biased by people that didn't even watch it and just hate (or love) the creator. I liked it, it was well written, narrated, and directed and it was about a topic that interests me.

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.

What a bizarre experience this movie was -- and not in a good way! It began kind of cute, sweet and innocent and showing many signs it would be a meaningful movie well worth watching.However, Elsa has a lying problem. That is, she lies. A lot. And the one person she lies the most to is Fred. Not a good sign. This movie portrays an old woman who is a pathological liar as if it were both cute and romantic. Being an older woman myself, I can tell you that the older I get the more I realize that lying is neither cute nor romantic, and this kind of message in a film really irks me big-time.Then when she tells Fred about her ex (who she had previously said died but who really didn't die, and she got caught in that lie) she told her "sob story" of how he cheated on her and so she went to another country to pay for a handsome young male prostitute, then came home and told her ex about it, saying that if he could cheat on her then she could cheat on him. The punch line was that he said it was okay for him because he was a man. I guess this is the point where we are supposed to say, "Oh good, she is just being a feminist." Ugh.I don't really care to cover anymore of the story except to say that I felt cheated myself -- of an hour or two of my time -- for having watched this ludicrous film which seems to give a moral to the story of it's okay to lie, and oh look, it's even kind of cute and romantic and whimsical and totally okay. Not!

I really like Shirley MacLaine and Christopher Plummer. So, I was pretty surprised to find them starring in "Elsa & Fred". After all, Netflix Streaming lists the two stars as (Gasp!) Marcia Gay Harden and James Brolin. Hello Netflix! James Brolin appears in only TWO scenes. I guess whoever listed "Elsa and Fred" are either Gen X or Gen Y. Otherwise, he or she would realized BOTH Shirley MacLaine AND Christopher Plummer have won Oscars! Well, yes, so has Marcia Gay Harden; but JAMES BROLIN? Anyway, the ignorance of those responsible for Netflix Streaming is the LEAST of the problems with "Elsa & Fred". I do not care if Michael Radford DID win an audience award. Radford's direction is listless; and nearly the entire first half of "Elsa & Fred" plays out almost as a series of unconnected scenes. Despite the great efforts of MacLaine and Plummer, there is simply NO chemistry between them during the first half. However, once Plummer's character "comes out of his shell," the chemistry between him and Shirley MacLaine is quite touching. Unfortunately, by then, it is too late. The narrative builds no tension, even with the cliché "character in jeopardy" subplot. More engaging music would certainly have helped.If you really want to see this type of movie done right, watch "Still Mine," with James Cromwell and Genevieve Bujold. Now, THAT is a "geriatric love story" worth seeing.Oh, I must point out, when MacClaine dresses as "Anita Ekberg," MacClaine proves she is STILL hot at 80. Sadly, I must ALSO point out that James Brolin, at 74, looks WAY too young to be convincing as MacLaine's estranged husband.I give "Elsa & Fred" a "4".

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 ****