Our Souls at Night

I watched this movie in MAMI, year round program film screening. I had also got opportunity to interact with director of the film - Ritesh Batra. He is called as cinematic tinder of common man, because he brings romance into lives of characters that have faced struggle and challenges in life.

It is a beautiful story of old aged woman and man who were living alone for years after their spouses have died. They break silence and start sleeping over same bed only to escape loneliness. Both of them continue talking and gossiping about their past lives, happy moments as well as regrets. Their children have grown up and are living their own independent life. Film is an emotional drama, warmth in relationships, and shows sense of human life in dialogues. It explores psyche of old age through their responses to life circumstances. Film end up teaching many life lessons through these characters. Addie regrets that she has spent years thinking what people would be talking about her.

Film is adapted from the novel of same name by Kent Haruf, who died just few weeks after publishing his last novel.

I very much enjoyed this unusual movie depicting the lives of two people in their older, and in this case, more lonesome years.

Both Fonda and Redford gave nuanced performances which were very relatable, especially if you are over the age of 60. I doubt that very young adults would find much to enjoy about this picture, and that is a shame because in fact it displays well the one thing which people cannot lose if they are to continue enjoying their lives into their last decades, and that is hope.

So often younger people do not appreciate the wisdom and humanity which both come with age. Nor do they realize that if they are lucky, they, too, will be old one day.

If you want a sweet look into lives of the older but certainly not dead yet, this would be a good place to do so.

Robert Redford and Jane Fonda are perfect for their lonely and flawed characters. What a sweet unfolding of two complex lives that crave connection and love. It begins simply with wanting to simply sleep through the night and then we get to know all the good and the hard parts of their lives and in the end it is about talking to each other.

There is a bit of all of us in these characters.

Don't agree with the 1-star reviewer. It's a beautiful film, with 2 great actors acting their AGE. No doddering, just honest raw emotion. The initial premise seemed odd, but after getting caught up in the storyline-I loved it! It's just a simple beautiful story. Like real life, no "hollywood" ending. Just real life.

An elderly man, sitting alone at a four-person table in his dining area, eats his dinner surrounded by silence, staring at nothing. This quick opening sequence is movie-shorthand for character exposition (the man is a widower--probably for a while now--in an obvious rut, still eating supper at the same time every night, in the same chair, just as he would if his wife were alive), and I feared the worst. Luckily, this script by Scott Neustadter and Michael H. Weber, adapting Kent Haruf's novel, proves to be a solid job of writing. Robert Redford plays the widower who no sooner sits down with his newspaper before he gets a surprise visit from down-the-street neighbor and widow Jane Fonda, an acquaintance of his late wife's. She proposes an initially-puzzling proposition: since they are both alone--and lonely, she presumes--and she has a hard time sleeping anyway, why don't they spend their nights together, platonically, in the same bed? It takes Redford a day to consider it, and their first sleepover is awkward, but soon the strangeness wears off and the couple comes to cherish their not-so-secret, non-intimate evenings. Sensitive study of small town lives, old wounds, family problems, loss, greetings and farewells, is tenderly and astutely rendered. This handsomely-shot film for Netflix may be criticized for being too polite, too tasteful, but you come to want the best for these people, even in the midst of life's big and small messes. The dialogue is vivid--amazingly so--and the supporting cast is uniformly excellent. This is the finest effort from either Redford or Fonda in many years; together, they provide a lovely duet.