As I've been working my way through the films of the '70s, I've had the nice experience of seeing a lot of familiar actors at the beginning of their careers. Well, lately I've also had the mostly not-so-pleasant, opposite experience of seeing several 70s and 80s actresses at the end of their careers. It's not that the actors are any worse, mind you, but that the opportunities for them to actually do anything interesting onscreen seems to have shrivelled to practically nothing.
The recent sleeper hit "Book Club" put Candice Bergen, Mary Steenburgen, Jane Fonda, and Diane Keaton onscreen together for a forgettable romantic comedy that I'm not going to get into much here. I came out of the film annoyed, not with the dullness of movie itself, but because I hadn't seen several of these talented actresses on the big screen in a long time, certainly not in anything more than bit parts playing someone's parent or a healthcare professional. It's been far too long since any of them have had a leading role, and seeing them squandered here was infuriating.
It was especially obvious when I had just recently been watching films like "Carnal Knowledge," "Looking For Mr. Goodbar," "Melvin and Howard," and "Coming Home," the movies that made the "Book Club" ladies famous. It helps a little to know that Fonda is still keeping busy with "Grace and Frankie," and Bergen is back as Murphy Brown, but it's still depressing to think that these talented actresses ended up in such a throwaway movie like "Book Club." And it's even more depressing to think about the dearth of options for the movie-loving Boomers that "Book Club" was aimed at.
On the one hand, I get it. Older actors slow down. Sometimes they don't age well. They retire, like Gene Hackman and Jack Nicholson. They go for lighter fare that allows for easier work environments and shooting schedules. There have been a couple of documentaries about older actresses in circulation recently that detail this, including "Nothing Like a Dame" with Maggie Smith and Judi Dench, and one about '50s Hollywood starlet Leslie Caron. Hollywood is notoriously terrible to actresses as they get older. The Brits seem to hold out a bit better, thanks to a hardier theater community that actors can fall back on. Maybe that's why so many of the most high profile older actors and actresses that populate movies like "The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel" are from the UK.
It galls me that we have such a wealth of talent with our older thespians that is so sorely underutilized. Is "Book Club" and its ilk really the best we can hope for? Frankly, I'm tired of the life-affirming pablum that so often gets programmed for seniors these days. I understand that downer films with older actors like "Amour," "45 Years," "Norman," and "I, Daniel Blake" don't appeal to everybody, but there's got to be some middle ground, right? Meryl Streep is still a legitimate movie star, and she's in the same age range as the "Book Club" women. Or is this a case of there only being enough room in the industry for one older leading lady? Or is everyone just moving to television?
I have my suspicions that the dearth of good American films for our boomer era actresses is another unfortunate result of the mid-range film having disappeared over the last decade or so. Adult dramas are scarce, and so are many of the films that would have starred older actors and actresses, like the melodramas, the travelogues, the legal thrillers, the political pictures, and even a good chunk of comedies are now content that the studios aren't interested in. When I think of recent American films starring older actors and actresses, it's all indies like Robert Redford in "The Old Man and the Gun" and "All is Lost," Sally Field in "Hello, My Name is Doris," and Bruce Dern in "Nebraska."
Mostly, I'm worried about missing out by not paying enough attention. It makes me uneasy that I haven't seen Susan Sarandon in anything since 2012. It's been a full decade since my last Jack Nicholson film. It sounds silly, but these are actors I've watched onscreen all my life, and their departure from the limelight, even in the best circumstances, always makes me sad. Honestly, we don't have many real movie stars left - and their era will be over before we know it.
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