My Old Lady

After a few weeks of sterile film viewing, finally some good adult fare. 

Writer/Director Israel Horowitz’s My Old Lady is an interesting and engaging drama about a down-on-his-luck 57-year-old man (Kevin Kline), who’s just inherited a Paris apartment from his estranged and, now, deceased father only to find out it is what in France is termed a viager property. 

 

Viager is a situation wherein the buyer makes a small down payment to the owner of a property and then pays a monthly installment for as long as the owner is alive and continues to live in the property.  If the owner dies soon, the buyer makes out extraordinarily well.  But, if the owner lives a very long time, the property could end up being extraordinarily expensive.

In this case, Kline’s character finds a 92-year-old woman (Maggie Smith) and her mid-50s daughter (Kristin Scott Thomas) living in his property and realizes he has, in fact, inherited a monthly debt.

But, that is not the only one of many realizations that occur as the story moves forward.

Kline,  Smith and Scott Thomas are all excellent, as is Horowitz’s direction and Michel Amathieu’s cinematography.

I give My Old Lady a 4 out of 5.