Review of Our Souls at Night (2017) by Tjhart — 11 Jul 2019
Based on the book by James Haruf, Redford and Fonda seem mismatched for their roles in both appearance and temperament. But they do bring an earnestness to their task so, overall, they are not a net minus.
What does cause this movie to fail is the Hollywood gloss put on everything. This is a story about the beauty found in simplicity, the beauty found in facing the challenge of aging, death, and in taking stock of past errors.
In the book their exists a vein of major conflict --blackmail, even -- that exists between Fonda's character Addie and her son. It is the lone place where there is even the hint of hero/villain and for some reason it has been omitted in the movie.
There are other issues: the town is larger, prettier, that the one described in the book, they make changes arbitrarily in matters of fact (Louis, Redford in the book wanted to be a poet and worked summers as a house painter, in the movie he aspired to be a painter and worked summers in construction) These are minor but like switching the baby mice for a train set s a vehicle to engage the boy, the question of why comes up.
Sorry, but the writers for the movie script should have left well enough alone.
This review of Our Souls at Night (2017) was written by Tjhart on 11 Jul 2019.
Our Souls at Night has generally received positive reviews.
Was this review helpful?
