Hal Ashby's magical 1971 existential romantic comedy Harold and Maude is one of the most unabashedly oddball films you will ever seen. Based on Colin Higgins' fabulously mischievous screenplay, it follows 21-year-old Harold Chasen (Bud Cort), a morbid, cynical boy sick of his wealthy life with his cold, domineering mother (Vivian Pickles) to the point where he is seen at the film's opening pretending to hang itself (the first of several amusing hoax suicide attempts). But then one day while basically gatecrashing a funeral he meets Ruth Gordon as optimistic, rambunctious 79-year-old Dame Marjorie Chardin, but as she says, "You must call me Maude" and they click instantly. But what develops is more than a surrogate grandmother/grandson relationship: they fall in love. And as their romance grows ever deeper, they learn very profound things from each other: from Harold, Maude learns (or rather, remembers) what it's like to be (literally) young and finding yourself, and she teaches him that aging and death are just natural.
Harold and Maude could have been either exploitative of its dynamic or sappy and pretentious thematically, but Ashby and Higgins treat this whole story so delicately and with no judgment it becomes such a beautiful ride, and it also helps that Cort and Gordon are both perfectly cast. I should emphasize, however, that it's even harder than usual for me to be objective here because I identify somewhat with Harold, and (all in a platonic sense) I've known a few Maudes. (And while Gordon deservedly won an Oscar for playing everybody's favourite nosy elderly neighbour in 1968's Rosemary's Baby, she will always be Maude to me.)
Now, admittedly its macabre humour probably won't tickle everybody's fancy, and several aspects of it are inevitably dated: Harold plays a vinyl record while staging his fake hanging, in one scene with his Army general uncle a picture of Richard Nixon is clearly visible and a number tattooed on her arm reveals Maude is a Holocaust survivor. But its heart beats so hard and sincerely that you can't deny the love everybody involved had for these two proud misfits and their romance, or how insightfully Ashby and Higgins explore the movie's themes. Overall, it really is timeless.
And how could I possibly forget Cat Stevens' marvellous soundtrack?
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