Let's talk about love stories. Cinema has no shortage of tales of romance, and I think everyone has their own favourite. And yeah, though some may groan, the truth is that this is a genre that's as old as storytelling itself. So what I want to do today is celebrate my favourite romantic film, Hal Ashby's wonderfully strange Harold and Maude. Because love, and the movies about it, can be odd, and inexplicable, and I think that's what makes them wonderful. The romantic genre is a fluid one, and within it is a diverse spectrum of stories that can resonate and charm for different reasons, and in different ways. And I think that people respond to the unconventional. Films that operate on a wavelength that is truly unique, and often forces the viewer to shift their preconceptions and see something different. When something can do this, it becomes really special.
So let's set the scene. Harold is a young man who's obsessed with death, constantly staging his own suicide, visiting the funerals of people he doesn't know and driving a hearse around. He's also deeply lonely, living with his status obsessed mother and having to endure a string of arranged dates with various women that he couldn't have less of an interest in. His existence is a strange one, with the people around him constantly trying to make sense of him and analyse him, when really he can't make sense of anything himself.
Enter Maude, a wide eyed 79 year old agent of chaos determined to live her life to the absolute fullest. Playful, joyful and full of wonder, Maude sees every day as a chance to do something different, to be something different, to really get out there and live. She'll casually commit crimes, experiment with various art forms and generally just do things for the sake of doing them. And it's at the funeral of somebody that she didn't know where she meets Harold.
A meet cute as bizarre as that definitely sets the tone for what's to come. Harold and Maude have a variety of misadventures; picnics on scrapheaps, ripping trees out of the pavement and replanting them, fantastic singing sessions and conversations about what it means to live. All the while, Maude is dragging Harold out of that morbid comfort zone that he keeps himself trapped in. Through her, he starts to understand what life is really about, while also giving her a companion to share these wonderful experiences with. Harold begins to become more and more detached from the straight laced world that his mother wants him to live in, coming up with ways to dodge these arranged dates that get increasingly morbid and surreal. Harold opens up to Maude in a way that he's never been able to anyone else in his life, and gradually his eyes start to open, and he begins to realise that quirkiness and spontaneity and new experiences are what life is all about.
And that's what their relationship is all about, too. In a genre that frequently gets criticised for being so shallow and superficial, Harold and Maude is a rom-com that really gets what makes an on screen relationship work. These are two characters who compliment each other, as wildly different as they may seem. She's able to open him up and allow him to escape the upper class oppression of his mother's world, while he's able to give her someone to share her life with. Not that she's particularly lonely, but now she has someone that she can pass all of this wonder and joy on to. The film nails that quirky balance, too. It's never twee for the sake of it. Instead, the quirkiness is used as a point of contrast to the atmosphere that Harold's mother creates for him. The delightful madness of Maude's reality gives Harold somewhere to escape to, and when their relationship comes to an end that's fittingly morbid and hilarious, he makes the choice to stay in Maude's world. It's a moment that resonates so much because their relationship really does impact on the world of the story, a world viewed through Harold's eyes; as his life changes, the film does too, and because the film ends with his life changed for ever, the conclusion makes that much more of an impact, driving the point of the story home in a way that's as gloriously twee as the way it began.
I love Harold and Maude. It's everything that I need from a love story, and it's combination of morbid dark humour and wonderfully quirky insight never fails to cheer me up. Thank you, Hal Ashby.
"I love you. I love you"
"Oh Harold, that's wonderful. Now go and love some more"
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