Movie: I will see you in my Dreams

Netflix throws some interesting shows in one's way.  Several we have seen lately deal with the older/aging/dying demographic and their adventures or lack of adventures.  I don't recall having seen movies like this before, either because I am moving into this age group slowly but surely myself, and am now suddenly taking notice, or because we belong to the coming Grey Tsunami and society as a whole is working on this topic.

First I saw the Greatest Marigold Hotel shows, and last night  "I will see you in my dreams".  

There are some extrodinary, experienced actors in these shows acting as the aging population:  Maggie Smith, Judy Dench, Blythe Danner and so on.



The performances are worth watching, the story lines are quite compelling and fresh, the frustrations are familiar.

"I will see you in my Dreams"  I had watched one third through while doing dishes, and got my husband to watch the rest of with me.  He was surprised.  He said for a "chick-flick" it was pretty interesting to him.  (I suppose anything without murders, detectives, bloodshed or car chases counts as a "chick-flick".)

I have a lot to say about it, but I don't have time.  Just one thing.  There is a young man in "I will see you in my Dreams" who wrote the poem and sang the song to the heroine of the show, but he sings out of tune--not terribly badly, but just bad enough to see that he has little practice nor training.  This is a good observation.  The new generation may write its own songs but it cannot sing.  The young man also went to college to study poetry but now he works as a "pool boy".  He feels like a failure but just wants to live a decent life.  Still he wants to find his true, fulfilling vocation.  The heroine tells him "When is that?"  In the end we all get it:  death.  She is joking but Not, no, joking aside.

In the end she is comforted by the song the young poet wrote and sang badly.  But she is comforted by the fact that he performed a simply duty for her in catching the vermin in her house.  Maybe helping an old woman is his calling for today.  Maybe the vermin stands for grief and loneliness.  Grief and loneliness need bearing but they can be ameliorated--maybe by seeing the lost persons in your dreams.  But really?  It that it?  Why do we get attached and then face loss?  Can we live on the memory?

At Stefan's funeral the pastor preached:  you will not be able to live just off the memories.  And indeed, we keep going over memories to a minimum.  The pictures are painful.  The events are hard to digest.