It's obvious that of her friends, Olympia Dukakis would struggle with health issues while best pal Jean Stapleton could run a marathon and come back still sprinting. Dukakis is tiring out, and daughter Lindsay Wagner is worried. A fall down the stairs adds more health trauma on her plate, and the sudden loss of Stapleton doesn't help. In fact, it appeared that she would outlive all their other friends, Amzie Strickland and Joan Leslie (yes, the 1940's ingenue from "Yankee Doodle Dandy"), but fate has no rules yet it is always filled with surprises. Old age changes people from being organized to neglectful and forgetful, and simple chores that Dukakis used to do easily are now left undone. Wagner finds herself becoming her mother's caretaker against her will, and that of course means changes in her household as well.
We all know what the conclusion of life will be, but it's always a mystery as to what that will entail. Between brother and sister Wagner and Edward Herrmann who are somewhat estranged, they can't come up with a solution simply because they can't really communicate. That is so true to life about how siblings disagree of how to handle their responsibilities when a parent ages. There are no bad guys, just a realistic situation where there is no right answer.
Wagner is good as the daughter, but she is overshadowed by the stage actors she is working with. Her character is decent but a bit hottie, only seeing the situation from one side and thinking that everybody else should be thinking the way that she does. Stapleton is delightful in her minimal screen time, a senior citizen Auntie Mame who is fighting her own fears of her mortality, but keeping them inside and simply just making the most of everything and being a cheerleader for her group. There are flashbacks of Dukakis and her late husband George Hearn filmed in black-and-white and that makes them appear younger then they really were when they filmed this.
A few twists are really disturbing, particularly a house break-in, but sadly, that's the realism of old people living alone in an unsecured house seemingly in the middle of nowhere. Dukakis, who was nearing 60 at the time, plays much older convincingly, and to think that she worked for another 30 years certainly yeah yeah little shows her own graceful aging, making her own exit this past year and leaving behind a great body of work. It takes a lot of courage to watch a film like this because it really does show what lies down the road for those lucky enough to reach old age. It's a good script and thus an above-average television movie that may not have all the answers but it does deal with the issues in a way that will affect the audience and touch them deeply.
We all know what the conclusion of life will be, but it's always a mystery as to what that will entail. Between brother and sister Wagner and Edward Herrmann who are somewhat estranged, they can't come up with a solution simply because they can't really communicate. That is so true to life about how siblings disagree of how to handle their responsibilities when a parent ages. There are no bad guys, just a realistic situation where there is no right answer.
Wagner is good as the daughter, but she is overshadowed by the stage actors she is working with. Her character is decent but a bit hottie, only seeing the situation from one side and thinking that everybody else should be thinking the way that she does. Stapleton is delightful in her minimal screen time, a senior citizen Auntie Mame who is fighting her own fears of her mortality, but keeping them inside and simply just making the most of everything and being a cheerleader for her group. There are flashbacks of Dukakis and her late husband George Hearn filmed in black-and-white and that makes them appear younger then they really were when they filmed this.
A few twists are really disturbing, particularly a house break-in, but sadly, that's the realism of old people living alone in an unsecured house seemingly in the middle of nowhere. Dukakis, who was nearing 60 at the time, plays much older convincingly, and to think that she worked for another 30 years certainly yeah yeah little shows her own graceful aging, making her own exit this past year and leaving behind a great body of work. It takes a lot of courage to watch a film like this because it really does show what lies down the road for those lucky enough to reach old age. It's a good script and thus an above-average television movie that may not have all the answers but it does deal with the issues in a way that will affect the audience and touch them deeply.
