While I have not been a Family Guy fan in quite some time, I do recognize that many of the jokes and humor it uses are taken directly from other places. Sometimes that means an animated recreation of a memorable scene or moment from another TV show or an older movie, basically anything that creator Seth MacFarlane’s childhood seemed to be up for grabs. I remember one of those odd flashbacks that had baby Stewey giving a withering put-down of an old woman’s body as if the idea of having sex with her was so nauseating he couldn’t stand it. I knew the speech came from Harold and Maude, and I assumed that it was something that morbid Harold said to lively Maude at some point in the movie. As such, I somewhat avoided the movie because it seemed like a really cruel thing to say to someone’s face in what I understood was a love story.
Then I saw the movie and learned Harold isn’t the one who delivers the speech, and it all turned out much better as a result.
19 year old Harold Chasen (Bud Cort) is obsessed with death. He routinely fakes elaborate suicides in an attempt, often futile, to get a reaction from his status-obsessed, wealthy mother (Vivian Pickles), drives a hearse, and goes to stranger’s funerals. His mother’s attempts to make him behave in a normal manner don’t seem to be working, even as she gets him a luxury car, sends him to a therapist, and signs him up for computer dating. But then Harold at one funeral meets Maude (Ruth Gordon), a woman sixty years his senior and Harold’s opposite in every possible way. Quick to point out how soon her 80th birthday is coming up, Maude just wants to experience as much as possible, and her upbeat attitude somehow connects to the dour Harold.
What follows starts off as a friendship and becomes something more as Harold keeps running into Maude before they start hanging out on purpose. Maude listens to Harold and accepts his eccentricities, which is more than can be said for the young women his mother keeps bringing by from the computer dating service, while Harold plays along with whatever scheme Maude has cooking, often involving car theft. In their own way, these two people are adept at ignoring rules, and their opposing outlooks make for a nice contrast. Can Maude bring Harold out of his shell enough that the young man might actually enjoy life?
I gotta admit, this is a funny movie. Special credit can go to, among other things, Harold’s various fake suicides. I don’t think he uses the same method twice, and when his psychologist asks him if he is doing these things for his mother’s benefit, he deadpan replies, “No. No, I would not say ‘benefit’.” Cort’s delivery has a appropriately creepy way of coming out, a way that fits a young man more interested in death than life. Gordon likewise is a treasure, someone who just wants to live on her terms no matter what anyone else might say. If it’s a new experience, she wants to feel it.
Factor in as well a nice Cat Stevens soundtrack, a treatise on how life matters, and a young man finding love in the most unexpected of places with someone who, yes, will love him back but will also do things her way or not at all. Yeah, this was a good one, worth a look for certain, especially when the Chasen’s family priest delivers the monologue I’d last heard from Stewey Griffins, a fact that makes the moment even funnier. Acting as an ode to life and a dark comedy at the same time is no mean feat, and yet, Harold and Maude pulled it off wonderfully.
Grade: A
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