In the film “The Thursday Murder Club,” released by Netflix in August, four elderly people spend their time investigating crimes in a retirement village. They would certainly have a lot to knit with Oliver and Charles, two colleagues in their seventies who try to discover who murdered their building’s doorman in the latest season of “Only Murders in the Building.”
Both productions focus their magnifying glasses on older characters who, thanks to their intelligence, give the police a hard time and succeed in solving crimes. These are unusual audiovisual depictions of these people, historically presented more as kind grandfathers or wise, inert and helpless mentors.
This maturity has already reached the Brazilian market. At 96 years old, Fernanda Montenegro is preparing to release “Velhos Bandidos”, a film in which she plays a robber alongside Ary Fontoura, 92 years old. In the plot, which will begin in March next year, elderly scoundrels seek help from newcomers to rob a bank.
But it’s not all laurels. Two weeks ago, a group of older actors launched a campaign against ageism on Brazilian television. Artists like Ana Lúcia Torre, 80, Nathalia Timberg, 96, and Dhu Moraes, 72, recorded a video in which they demand more veterans in the audiovisual sector. They follow an old protest by Susana Vieira, 83, who has complained for years about the loss of space for newcomers in Globo soap operas.
Perhaps that’s why the film “The Last Blue”, released in the middle of the year, was so well received. This is the story of Tereza, 77, who refuses a one-way ticket to the government-controlled retirement home. Her dream is to fly in a plane and she goes to the police to make it come true. Director Gabriel Mascaro says he was inspired by his own grandmother who, once widowed, decided to spend her free time learning to paint.
In his desire to film something on the subject, Mascaro discovered a similarity in the elderly characters – almost all of them were accustomed to talking about the finitude of life or the imminence of death, the filmmaker explains. “Cinema almost never considers older people as those who write their present. It’s as if they were devoid of presence. Only young people have the right to thrill, to desire, to rediscover.”
Thus, “L’Último Azul” wanders through the body and mind of Tereza, played by Denise Weinberg, taking the actress into situations that are sometimes contemplative, sometimes absurd, like this time where she is excited by a fish fight.
It is in this attempt to break stereotypes that “The Last Blue”, awarded at the Berlin Festival, one of the most important on the world circuit, joins forces with the British “The Thursday Crime Club”, available on Netflix.
“Our film shows that old people don’t exist just to waste away,” Irish actor Pierce Brosnan, 72, said at the film’s premiere in August. A 1990s idea, Brosnan is known for playing a version of Agent James Bond in the “007” franchise.
In the new film, Brosnan’s character and his colleagues do quiet, everyday things like learning crochet and playing chess, but they also chase down thieves and beat them. “I hear a lot of people talk about the burden of aging. It’s terrible. We’re here because the universe made it possible. Let’s celebrate it. It’s an exciting phase of life,” said Ben Kingsley, 81, also one of the lead actors.
This does not mean, however, that the scenario ignores the difficulties encountered by older people. The protagonist, played by 80-year-old Helen Mirren, faces family difficulties due to her husband’s Alzheimer’s disease, which is only getting worse. When she goes out to have fun – to solve puzzles – she has to squint to see the fine print in old files.
The thriller has a similar storyline to the series “A Spy Undercover”, also released by Netflix last year, in which a retired teacher is hired by a detective to infiltrate an asylum. Ted Danson, 77, is the protagonist.
Last year’s film “Thelma,” about a nonagenarian who rides a motorcycle to track down a crook who has crossed her life, also joins this movement. The character is played by the American June Squib who, at 96 years old, connects one project to another. The most recent, “The Incredible Eleanor,” screened at Cannes mid-year, but has not yet premiered in Brazil.
Jane Fonda is another veteran who can’t get enough. Two years ago, she starred in the comedies “80 for Brady: Four Friends and a Passion,” about older women deciding to pursue a dream, and “The Way They Want: The Next Chapter,” about older women who decide to travel in a group. She is also one of those who escape commonplaces when she accepts roles.
Brosnan, the Irishman, attributes this greater protagonism of older people in genre films to the proliferation of streaming platforms, which have opened up space in a potentially ageist market, pulling out of limbo those who were ignored.
Despite the feeling of progress, the ground remains uneven. Most of these films and series feature big Hollywood names, who repeat themselves, while lesser-known actors remain confined to clichés.
An example of a stamped figure is Jean Smart, 74, who won the Emmy for best actress for the fourth time this year for the series “Hacks”. She is indeed very good in all seasons, according to specialist critics, but there is still a certain complacency in rewarding an actress who has long proven herself.
What’s curious is that, in “Hacks”, Smart plays an actress who sees her career falter as she gets older. That’s more or less what happens in last year’s film “The Substance,” which cast Demi Moore, at 62, as an actress pushed out of the market because of her age.
Moore was seen as the likely winner of this year’s best actress Oscar, in a tough competition with Brazilian Fernanda Torres, 60, but both lost to newcomer, American Mikey Madison, 26, in a decision many people saw as ageist.
Busy with the promotion of the film “I’m Still Here”, Torres declined the invitation to play the iconic villain Odete Roitman in the remake of the soap opera “Vale Tudo”, broadcast this year on TV Globo. The role then went to Debora Bloch, who revamped the character to embody a daring Odette full of sexual appetite.
“The women who worked on the set, especially the more mature ones, love Odete, they feel vindicated. The 60-year-old woman doesn’t want to be the 30-year-old woman. She really wants to be the 60-year-old woman, and free,” Bloch said. during the broadcast of the soap opera.
Bloch lived with Odete Roitman at the height of his career. This happened after dozens of serials and films, at the age of 62, a phase which she says is one of the best of her life.
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