At 6 a.m. each morning, Carol (Blythe Danner) and her bed partner, Hazel the dog, are awakened by the digital beep of her alarm clock. Carol’s midcentury modern house is tidy, tasteful and otherwise empty; a few old pictures afford a glimpse of her former life as a singer in a band and her husband, dead these 20 years. She reads the morning paper, waters the plants on her patio, plays cards at the retirement village with a circle of women friends and returns to her bed, dozing to late-night television with Hazel at her feet.
It’s not a bad life by any measure—until, suddenly, Hazel sickens. It’s an emotionally brave person who stays with her beloved pet in the vet’s office as the drugs put the animal to sleep forever, and Carol is nothing if not steady and well composed. However, the loss of Hazel triggers thoughts of life beyond the comfortably solitary existence she had constructed as a well-off widow whose only family is a daughter on the opposite coast.
I’ll See You in My Dreams is rare in many respects for a contemporary movie. Laconic and emotionally low key, I’ll See You is both moving and amusing. The story, co-written by director Brett Haley, fulfills none of the expectations and clichés of romantic comedy. It’s a film directed toward an older audience and—except for a single medical marijuana scene at the retirement home—sidesteps all those wacky golden ager cinema stereotypes. I’ll See You respects older people while including a realistically drawn Millennial in the form of Lloyd (Martin Starr), the failed-musician-turned-swimming-pool-cleaner who becomes Carol’s friend. They bond over music, especially after Lloyd brings Carol to a karaoke club where she sings for the first time in years.
Carol resists the nudging of her circle of older friends, led by matchmaker Sally (Rhea Perlman channeling Thelma Ritter), yet succumbs to the silvery charm of a mysterious wealthy retiree. Bill (Sam Elliott) is a sensitive swashbuckler with a sly, confident grin and a sense of irony, and is seldom parted from his big cigar even if the stogie is seldom lit. He is an adventurer whose past is never explained—one imagines him running guns and drinking with Castro. He is strong-minded yet easy going. His boat is called “So What” and Carol gets it when he explains that he named it for the Miles Davis song, the one from Kind of Blue.
Supported by solid role-playing from Elliott and Starr and Danner’s superbly nuanced performance, I’ll See You in My Dreams doesn’t try to squeeze its protagonist into a conventional happy ending, but offers her a more up-to-date option: living on her own terms.
I’ll See You in My Dreams
3 and a half stars
Blythe Danner
Sam Elliott
Martin Starr
Directed by Brett Haley
Rated PG-13
