Seniors' "in Love" on The Big Screen

Seniors’ “in Love” on The Big Screen

It is so refreshing to see an abundance of movies these days focusing on the love between two older adults. When previously younger love was demonstrably displayed as the normal form of love and what we all seemed to dream of, it would seem that the increase in senior-centric romances are ever present on the big screen lately.
Movies like Cocoon, The Bucket List, The Notebook, Grumpy Old Men, Something’s Gotta Give, Letters to Juliet,Away From Her and my personal favourite, Feast of Love portray romantic and true love between seniors. Movies like this represent the desire of so many of us romantics who want to grow old with our partners and show quite aptly, the negative and positive aspects of aging. A body may be young at the beginning of a marriage or long term relationship, but the friendship, knowledge, respect and acceptance that takes over through time, seems much more desirable. Sex may become challenging, but with age comes a deeper respect for our partner and a new understanding of what “sex” means and can be.

Perhaps this increase is due simply to the demographic changes currently underway in the developed world. However, I would like to think that this change in cinema is occurring because attitudes and ideas towards seniors are becoming all the more positive. The levity of such a change is beyond reproach. With media and societal standards previously flaunting youth as the most desired time of one’s life, having a medium such as film highlighting the optimism, excitement and open mindedness of getting older is absolutely ground breaking.

Whether we find our love in the youth of our lives, the middle or the end, whether we yearn for someone from a distance, whether we were separated from our true love long ago or whether we lost that one person tragically; it doesn’t matter. Love is messy, complex, amazing, life changing, and impervious to age. And to be perfectly honest, as much as I relish my youthfulness, I am very much looking forward to being Allie from the Notebook, Fiona from Away from Her, Esther Stevenson in Feast of Love, or any of the women from Cocoon. The best truly is yet to come.