MY OLD LADY – The Review

Starring Maggie Smith, Kevin Kline and Kristin Scott Thomas, MY OLD LADY is already my favorite film of the year. Based on the play by Israel Horovitz, who also adapted and directed for the screen, this charming “dramedy” hits the mark at every turn.

Kline plays Mathias Gold, a down on his luck New Yorker and recovering alcoholic who has inherited an enormous Paris apartment from his estranged father. Thinking he can quickly flip the valuable property for a fast buck, he shows up to find 90-year old tenant Mathilde Girard (Maggie Smith) living there with her adult daughter Chloe (Kristin Scott Thomas).

Mathias soon learns from local real estate agent Monsieur Lefebvre (played perfectly by scene stealing French character actor Dominique Pinon) that the deal is a “viager” – a uniquely French system whereby the buyer doesn’t take legal possession of the property until the seller dies (one of the biggest laughs comes when Mathias asks Mme. Girard how old she is), AND he has to pay her.

As Mathias sets out to speed up the process, family secrets begin to spill out and he realizes it is so much more complicated than he expected.

Smith is at her usual level of genius as the very English and very direct Girard – “I’m 90, subtlety isn’t something that interests me.” Not surprisingly, Kristin Scott Thomas also turns in a very sweet performance as the cold and somewhat sad Chloe, who has given up a life of her own to stay with her widowed mother. But Kline is the one that keeps you hanging on his every word. His sad-sack, thrice divorced, about to fall off the wagon any minute Mathias is at once sad, funny, sharp-witted and charming.

After a summer of over-the-top, CGI heavy, and way too long action flicks, this sweet film is a welcome reprieve. The story moves along nicely and by the end, we are invested in this nearly tragic threesome and all the secrets they hold and reveal.

5 out of 5 stars

The film premiered at the 2014 Toronto International Film Festival. It opens in limited release on September 10th and in St. Louis on September 19th.