Last Love (2013)

This is yet another movie about the end of one's life--I seem to be watching a lot of movies of late that involve actors who are at or near my parent's age.  It may be coincidence or it might be because I am thinking about my parents.  They are trying to move to be nearer to us at a time when they can do the move themselves, rather than having to be moved.

Matthew Morgan is a retired philosophy professor who's wife died, and he is left bereft.  I am sure that I do not want to feel like he does, although it is entirely possible that if I outlive my spouse and I still have my wits about me that I will be incapacitated.  His life takes a turn for the better when he meets Pauline on the bus.  She is a cha cha dance instructor who befriends him in the most genuine of ways.  I think that one of the keys to successful aging is to have friends who are younger than you, ideally along the way, so that even if you live to be quite old, and everyone who is your age is long gone, that you still have people in your life who are still alive and kicking.

Pauline does more than give Matthew something bright in his life--she is a bridge between him and his children.  Losing a spouse does not help with the task of  helping your children lose their parent--and Matthew was not a model father, so he was no better at that task than he was at moving on himself.  Pauline facilitates detente, and it is a bittersweet film with some flashes of wisdom.  And it is streaming on Netcflix.