Boynton Beach Club

Boynton Beach Club ***

There is a line in the middle of "Boynton Beach Club" which I think completely describes why I found this such a delightful and refreshing film. One of the characters says, "People think that when you reach a certain age, you just stop having sex. That just isn't true." And yet, in every single Hollywood movie in the last few years, the ideas of senior citizens having anything to do with a romantic relationship outside of their marriage has just been considered taboo. With the exception of "Something's Gotta Give," I can't remember another film which involved the senior love world, which must exist. . . right?

The entire film takes place in the Boynton Beach community, where we are introduced to Marty and Marilyn, who have been married for the better part of forty years. While on his morning jog, Marty is run over by a woman on a cell phone, who wasn't paying attention to anything but her conversation. Marty dies, and Marilyn finds herself angry. Angry at the woman who drove her husband over, and angry at the fact that she just couldn't talk to Marty for a few seconds more. Maybe then, he wouldn't have been killed. We are then introduced to Jack, who has already lost his wife of forty years, and he is going through the phase where all he eats is the food that his neighbors made for him. However, both Jack and Marilyn are given the chance to join a club where others are also going through loss, and they are invited to it by Lois, who lost her husband eight years ago, but joined the club after her son ended up passing away. Lois has a new love interest, in the form of Donald, a real estate agent that she met in a diner. Jack makes friends with Harry, who lost his wife a while back, but is finally getting back in the dating game by meeting people on the internet-in one of those internet dating services. And Jack also ends up meeting Sandy, who gives him her card without having met him yet, just wanting to take a chance on something that she thinks could be wonderful. And the various interconnected stories weave and begin to be told. . .

"Boynton Beach Club" is a nice little film, which deals with sex, dating, and grief. These people aren't strangers to the dating world, but the fact that they have been married for the last few decades makes them a bit afraid of what's ahead. They haven't dated in almost fifty years, and now they are just expected to go through all of that all over again. The preformances are on key. Everyone works really well together. It is a formula romantic comedy, really. The characters all go through their love affairs, and then are drawn apart from them after some kind of shocking and deep revalation, but then everything is alright again at a New Year's Eve Party. But, it's also a step forward. Maybe it could possibly allow more films like this to be made. Maybe in the future, Hollywood won't be scared to make a film where the lead actress, a woman in her 60's, ends up showing her breasts. It's brave, really. A film where the elderly actually get to behave as if they would in real life. Just because they are old, Hollywood thinks, doesn't mean they can't mate, date, swear, or do anything that people in their 30's do. Trust me, the elderly do do that, and more. When that character that I mentioned in the beginning of this says the line that he says, I can't help think that when he says "people" he really means "Hollywood." Maybe it's just the directors way of sticking it to the big studios, who would never release anything as human as "Boynton Beach Club."