I guess I can understand why 'Harold and Maude' has become a cult classic -- its love story is defiant of convention and the movie celebrates and romanticizes society's outsiders. While it's an innocent enough film, I suppose, or maybe simply a naïve film, I can't think of many other movies that have made me feel such genuine discomfort.
The problem is not that 20-year old Harold falls in love with 79-year old Maude. The problem is that Maude is not sexy, not endearing, and not real. Harold may have been written as an asexual, but I somehow doubt that screenwriter Colin Higgins (whose career has not been an impressive one, having since yielded movies like '9 to 5' and 'Silver Streak') considered that. Harold has no interest in girls his own age and thwarts each of his mother's matchmaking attempts with grotesquely faked suicides.
Harold, as played by Bud Cort, is nevertheless the only character in the film who takes on the dimensions of an actual human being. Everyone else is written as a caricature, and that's one of the film's major flaws. Harold's mother, for instance, is an obnoxious, classist heiress who asks her son questions and then answers on his behalf. The character is written in one key and is played in one key by Vivian Pickles. The filmmakers' attitude toward this character is so obvious that by simply placing poor Harold as her son, in her company, a certain angelic aura is given to him in contrast. Harold is laconic and glum, wears mourner's attire and drives a hearse, and his economy of verbal expression elicits the viewer's sympathy almost by default, since every other character in the film may as well be using a megaphone.
Then there's Maude. Ruth Gordon is a fine actress, and it's heartwarming to see a woman of her age exhibit as much verve and energy as she does here. But her character of Maude is yet another caricature, and her every line drips with saccharine forever-young sunniness that sounds like flower-child parody. She brings some joy, some sunshine, into Harold's life, and some excitement; it's supposed to be ironic and funny when Maude steals a car and speeds away from the police.
The movie is entirely too precious about Harold, about Maude, and about Harold and Maude. Even Harold's suicide forgeries are framed with a glow of Gothic tragedy, which just prevents them from being funny (although one prank, where Harold pretends to chop off a hand in order to scare off another arranged date, is funny). Making matters worse is the musical score by Cat Stevens, which is now painfully dated and sugar-coats whatever remaining black comedy could have been salvaged from this material. All of these touches are intended to make the film feel-good and liberating, I would presume, but it's ultimately just depressing and made me feel pretty queasy.
Watching this movie, nothing about it screams 'classic.' It looks like it should have remained some forgotten and embarrassing relic of the early '70s.
The problem is not that 20-year old Harold falls in love with 79-year old Maude. The problem is that Maude is not sexy, not endearing, and not real. Harold may have been written as an asexual, but I somehow doubt that screenwriter Colin Higgins (whose career has not been an impressive one, having since yielded movies like '9 to 5' and 'Silver Streak') considered that. Harold has no interest in girls his own age and thwarts each of his mother's matchmaking attempts with grotesquely faked suicides.
Harold, as played by Bud Cort, is nevertheless the only character in the film who takes on the dimensions of an actual human being. Everyone else is written as a caricature, and that's one of the film's major flaws. Harold's mother, for instance, is an obnoxious, classist heiress who asks her son questions and then answers on his behalf. The character is written in one key and is played in one key by Vivian Pickles. The filmmakers' attitude toward this character is so obvious that by simply placing poor Harold as her son, in her company, a certain angelic aura is given to him in contrast. Harold is laconic and glum, wears mourner's attire and drives a hearse, and his economy of verbal expression elicits the viewer's sympathy almost by default, since every other character in the film may as well be using a megaphone.
Then there's Maude. Ruth Gordon is a fine actress, and it's heartwarming to see a woman of her age exhibit as much verve and energy as she does here. But her character of Maude is yet another caricature, and her every line drips with saccharine forever-young sunniness that sounds like flower-child parody. She brings some joy, some sunshine, into Harold's life, and some excitement; it's supposed to be ironic and funny when Maude steals a car and speeds away from the police.
The movie is entirely too precious about Harold, about Maude, and about Harold and Maude. Even Harold's suicide forgeries are framed with a glow of Gothic tragedy, which just prevents them from being funny (although one prank, where Harold pretends to chop off a hand in order to scare off another arranged date, is funny). Making matters worse is the musical score by Cat Stevens, which is now painfully dated and sugar-coats whatever remaining black comedy could have been salvaged from this material. All of these touches are intended to make the film feel-good and liberating, I would presume, but it's ultimately just depressing and made me feel pretty queasy.
Watching this movie, nothing about it screams 'classic.' It looks like it should have remained some forgotten and embarrassing relic of the early '70s.