Our Souls at Night

Robert Redford and Jane Fonda in a beautiful Autumn of Life relationship.  A story based on a novel by Kent Haruf and directed by Ritesh Batra ( of Lunch Box fame)

What starts as a platonic friendship between the two, a seeking for meaningful companionship of two people living alone, blossoms into something more. 

Addie ( Jane Fonda) and Louis (Robert Redford) are neighbors and have been for a very long time.....through their own marriages, children, life's ups and downs, and are now both single. They are both set into their own patterns and quite comfortably so. And then change happens.

While at one level it can be called a classic hollywood romance, it shows itself up to be different right from the very first scene.

One night in walks Addie into Louis's house, with quite a startling proposition; She asks Louis if he would be okay to coming and sleeping with her "just for company, no sex, just to chat up" she says, as her nights are tough alone and she can't sleep easy. She says it with almost no preamble, no aplomb, straight and simple, and with a sincerity and openness that leaves little scope for misinterpretation or cynicism.

I loved the level of awareness and sense of security that enables that, more so the completely comfortable acceptance of  his  "I'd like to think about it". (Fonda is the bold and free spirited one, while Louis is the more staid uptight worrier kinds)

And that's how it starts

And sure enough they talk. He starts with weather, and she's like anything but.

Over time the barriers break. He tells her about his extra marital affair, his failed ambition to become a painter, and she talks of the death of her daughter in an accident and how it impacted her marriage. They get wrapped in this cocoon of intimate dialogue, of direct and candid conversation, a space to sort out their own pasts, their griefs, and put their skeletons to rest. As the stories unfold, it's becomes a process through which they discover themselves.

It's a small town in Colorado, so they initially keep it secret, and as the comfort grows they come out in the open, become food for scandal, and soon find they are not news anymore....and their own connection, their lives and their selves grow.

And through it all they spend daytime in respective houses, he in his own house and she in hers. There's that much space in the relationship.  Even the physical romance takes its time to enter the picture. A kind of nice ideal of 'own space' and 'togetherness'.

Guess as is said, the path of love ain't ever easy; as expected, there is family drama that comes in the guise of an (adult) child, and Addie moves to another town to look after a grandchild. And you see that  physical distance is no longer a deterrent to the connection that has developed.

They are now comfortable talking about even the weather....it's more about....about just the talking.

Robert Redford and Jane are so natural, that you soon forget you are watching a movie and just become part of this beautiful story.