Donald Sutherland and Helen Mirren star in the alternately
touching and enervating comic drama “The Leisure Seeker,” about Ella and John
Spencer, who’ve been married for 50 years when they decide to set out on one
final road trip in their beloved 1975 Winnebago, the name of which lends the
film its title.
With nary a
word to let anyone know where they’re going, the couple leave their
Massachusetts home behind and head south. A retired professor of literature,
John is prone to waxing on about his love for Ernest Hemingway, and the
couple’s ultimate destination is the author’s home down in Key West.
John’s
suffering from dementia, and the disease has given him a tendency to slip in
and out of the past; one night he wakes up bewildered, not recognizing the
gray-haired woman lying next to him as the woman he married so many decades
ago. Meanwhile, Ella has been refusing treatment for her cancer and only sporadically
remembers to take her medication. Seeing a chance for escape, they speed off
down the east coast, taking the opportunity for one last adventure before they
lose themselves completely.
The script
adds some additional urgency to the story by cutting back to the couple’s grown
son (Christian McKay) as he grows increasingly frantic that his parents have
struck out on the road by themselves. He worries they can’t handle a strenuous
journey on their own, though his sister (Janel Moloney)
is slightly more sanguine about the situation.
On their
travels, the couple bicker, reconnect, and encounter a cross-section of the
country’s population, from helpful motorcyclists and patient diner waitresses,
to a pair of hooligans who make the mistake of attempting to rob the couple.
All the while they insist on chattering away about the details of their lives,
much to the discomfort and occasional bemusement of the people they meet. Their
nights are spent sitting in front of slideshows Ella projects on a sheet strung
across whatever RV campsite they’re currently spending the night in, while she
quizzes him on the details of their family and history together.
Sporting a
thick Southern accent and a wig, Mirren is as winning as ever. She captures
Ella’s growing frustration over the swiftness with which John’s awareness comes
and goes, as the burden falls to her to do the remembering for the both of
them. Not to mention the way John can instantly recall the name of a pretty
student from more than 20 years ago, but can’t identify his own children. But
we can also sense the love Ella still clearly holds for her husband, even as
the man she knows appears to be present less and less.
Sutherland’s
performance allows us to see both the charming man Ella fell in love with, as
well as the lost man who’s just as confused and frustrated as she is. Ella may
hold her share of anger at the disease that’s stolen her husband from her, but
as he says during a rare moment of clarity, “whoever stole him from you stole
him from me too.”
The two
veteran actors are wonderful together, easily conjuring up a sense of the
couple’s shared history together. They’re especially sweet during a late scene
dancing to Thelma Houston’s “Don’t Leave Me This Way” (a choice that’s little
on the nose, but effective nonetheless). But it’s not difficult to see where
this is all headed, and even performers as skilled as these two can’t alleviate
the sense that we’ve seen this story before.
Based on a
novel by Michael Zadoorian, the script to “The
Leisure Seeker” is credited to no less than four writers (Stephen Amidon,
Francesca Archibugi, Francesco Piccolo, and Virzì), and perhaps as a result of so many hands in the
pot, the film never quite nails the tone it’s aiming for. Too many scenes veer
toward sensationalism, and while the script seeks to be a clear-eyed
exploration of aging, it can’t resist sprinkling in a few too many lazy jokes
about incontinence and farting.
Italian
director Paolo Virzì’s outsider’s perspective does
occasionally add an intriguing angle to the material. The original novel was
published in 2009, but Virzì shifts the action to
August of 2016, seemingly just so he can open the film with a Donald Trump
campaign speech, then later include a scene in which the couple stumble into a
MAGA rally. The filmmaker seems to want the story to be a look back on the
things that have slipped away, both personal and across the nation. There’s
also a scene late in the film that displays an unanticipated sexual frankness, a
welcome departure from the expected.
But the film
works almost in spite of itself, and somewhere along the way “The Leisure
Seeker” finds enough moments that resonate — about the things we choose to face
and those we choose not to, about facing the end on one’s own terms, and the
security that comes from the knowledge that we’ve selected just the right
person to sit in the copilot’s seat.
This article appears in Mar 21-27, 2018.
