I think this is Jack Lemmon's greatest performance and the supporting cast are incredible, including Ted Danson who always appears to me to be slightly frenetic in a grim kind of way. Here he is truly believable and his scenes with his own son tug at your heart they are so real. No Hollywood quickfix here for the relationship, the boy is simply closer to his grandfather than he is to his own father and nothing will change that fact.
What I liked most about the film was that the theme in less worthy hands could have been made sloppily sentimental, but here it is totally restrained both in script and direction and it makes for a really meaningful movie. The characters remain real all the way through and the script does not transform them into wondrous saints by movie's end.
It is the wonderful understatement in it all that captivated me and made me weep at the end. Jack is truly unforgettable and Olympia magnificent in her dryness and cynicism. I have seen it 3 times and each time relished another scene a little more. This time around it was Jack dragging his wife around to meet the neighbours he was not even aware of before and her long suffering face at this new and reinvented Jack makes you laugh out loud. Bravo to all. An 8 1/2 out of 10. And that scene where they dance, oh me oh my......who needs naked bodies writhing on a bed, this has sensuousness, love and intimacy in it, the real kind. Oh for more of those scenes in movies!
