"Elsa & Fred" is the latest brick soufflé thrown at an unsuspecting audience. This movie is so tone-deaf that it tries to wring charm from questionable stereotypes about senior citizens and minorities. The latter is so completely out of place that it gives "Elsa & Fred" an air of elitism that I assume was not intentional. The former drives the plot, and despite the presence of the extremely charming Oscar-winning actors Christopher Plummer and Shirley MacLaine, one cannot help but root for this couple to stay the hell away from each other. The pitch meeting must have been “it’s the typical bad romantic comedy…but with OLD PEOPLE!!”
For its senior-aged couple, “Elsa & Fred” presents a grouch and a compulsive liar, the latter of whom is so incredibly unlikeable that you root for the grouch to drive her away forever. At least the grouch has reason for his temperament: Fred (Plummer) is a recently widowed man whose shrew stereotype of a daughter Lydia (Marcia Gay Harden—another Oscar winner completely wasted here) treats him as if he’s gone senile. Lydia hires an African-American caregiver (Erika Alexander) for Fred. The caregiver’s '80s aerobics instructor look and street vernacular get insulted by Lydia, and, in one unfortunate scene, Alexander holds up a watermelon in close-up and without irony.
While Lydia represents the “those pesky young people are so ungrateful” subplot, Plummer hooks into these early scenes of resentment and bitterness, embodying them with a deeply internalized, unspoken suffering. You almost want his Garbo-like wish to be left alone to be granted, if only so he can reconcile the death of a wife he actually hated.
But this is a romance, so one must allow for the hope that someone will rouse Fred from his misery. Enter Elsa (Shirley MacLaine), Fred’s next door neighbor. Elsa is the type of character a bad film has to constantly remind you to like. She’s a liar whose lies would doom all but the most masochistic relationships. She lies to Fred about her marital status, her family and her health. She does this while trying to drag the distrustful Fred from his shell and into a world where he can trust without fear.
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