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When everyday life gets a little too stressful, many of us start to dream about packing our bags and disappearing for a while. In The Leisure Seeker, a couple does just that—but it isn’t the kind of fun-filled adventure that most of us dream of having.
The Leisure Seeker begins as John and Ella Spencer (Donald Sutherland and Helen Mirren) run away from their home in Massachusetts. Instead of going in for another round of treatments that don’t seem to be helping, Ella wants to take John to visit Hemingway’s house in Key West—the place they’ve always dreamed of visiting. And with John’s memory and her health quickly fading, she knows their time is limited. So, without telling their children, they pack up their old Winnebago, which they’ve named The Leisure Seeker, and set out on their adventure down the coast.
From the beginning of The Leisure Seeker, it’s clear that this isn’t a wacky comedy about a couple of old people who decide to escape their overbearing children and head off to have some fun. John and Ella are struggling to deal with her terminal illness and his accelerating dementia. Their time together is coming to its end, and this is their last hurrah. And that sets the tone for a sweet but entirely melancholy experience.
Of course, there are some of the mishaps and high jinks that often come with movies about older characters. Ella is the stereotypical chatty old lady who will talk to anyone who will listen. John is the lovably forgetful old guy who accidentally pulls out of the gas station while his wife is still inside (though, really, it’s a movie miracle that this road trip isn’t even more disastrous).
The story also offers a moving look at lifelong love—with the two characters reminiscing (and sometimes arguing about) their past together. Each night, Ella puts on a slide show to help John remember. And while they drive, they talk about old friends and fight about old flames.
But there’s more to it than that. John can be charming and lucid one minute and confused or even angry the next. Ella’s friendly smile and rambling conversations cover her sickness and the pain of slowly losing the man she once loved to a terrible disease. And the reality of the situation makes it harder to chuckle at the comic moments—and, in the end, this lengthy road trip feels more sad than celebratory.
On one hand, The Leisure Seeker tells a heartbreaking story about love and getting older. On the other hand, it sometimes feels like that too-long vacation that you took with your grandparents when you were a kid. It certainly has its moments, but it’s a little too long and too muddled to be great.
Listen to the review on Reel Discovery:
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