Life is Never Over in ‘I’ll See You in My Dreams’

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Rating: 3.5/5.0

CHICAGO – Fairy tales can come true, it can happen to you, if you’re the main character in “I’ll See You in My Dreams.” Blythe Danner portrays a long-time widow whose routine is set, but life is what happens when you’re busy making other plans. The series of extraordinary events are life lessons, at a point in life where class is dismissed.

The film rises and falls on the shoulders of Ms. Danner, and she wavers on how much she is up to the challenge. The film is a bit of a tease, dangling the pool boy in front of the still sultry Ms. D., but it essentially is a slice of life, with more ordinariness – sometimes to its disadvantage – than show-off drama. It’s the type of story that when it works best, it really works, but when it doesn’t, it’s not that annoying. It’s a fairy tale, and for Danner’s character, it all came true.

The film opens with Carol (Danner), a sixty-something widow, taking her sick dog into the vet, and it has to be put down. With a new realization of sadness, Carol is suddenly sensitive to the her normal routine, and begins to drink a little more. This concerns her bridge club (Rhea Perlman, Mary Kay Place, June Squibb), and they encourage her to move into their assisted living facility.

Bill (Sam Elliott) Woos Carol (Blythe Danner) in ‘I’ll See You in My Dreams’
Photo credit: Bleecker Street Media

Not feeling right about leaving her home, Carol starts a friendship with Lloyd (Martin Starr), her pool maintenance man, and starts a flirtation with a widower named Bill (Sam Elliott) at the local golf club. All these life changing events start to overwhelm her life, and the next phase proves that no matter what routine you have, it cannot replace living.

Blythe Danner is a an under-the-radar actress, known mostly in the last several years as Robert De Niro’s wife in the “Meet the Parents” series of films, and of course as Gwyneth Paltrow’s mother. The situation in the film exploits her past as a Broadway musical songstress, as Carol’s past was also as a singer. But she just isn’t as savory an actress as the character calls for, she does a good job not a great job. There are so many subtleties to Carol that go unexplored, and a more seemly performance might have implied those subtleties better.

The script, co-written by the director Brett Haley, is a good attempt to talk about the changing landscape of senior citizens, especially the women who inevitably live longer than men. These women went through the feminist movement and more of them had lives outside their husbands, and the women are strong in this story. Old veterans Mary Kay Place and Rhea Perlman add spice to the older lady role, and Oscar-nominee June Squibb (“Nebraska”) gets to do her shrilled voice persona. There is a questionable medical marijuana scene, but easy laughs are better than no laughs.

And then there are the supporting male characters, expertly cast. Who doesn’t smile when they see the white mustachioed, gravel-voiced Sam Elliott on screen? He lends an air of mischief and mystery to Bill, and again punctures the stereotypes of senior citizens. Martin Starr (“Silicon Valley”) gets outside of his snarky software coder and portrays Lloyd as a socially inept loner, looking for friendship with an older lady, and getting smitten in the process. Starr has a great sense of character, he’s the type of actor that so loses himself, he disappears into the role he’s playing.

Carol and Lloyd (Martin Starr) Hang Out in ‘I’ll See You in My Dreams’
Photo credit: Bleecker Street Media

There is a song – sung by Starr in the end – called “I’ll See You in My Dreams,” and it is such a surprise that I suspect it might have been written before the movie, and then the film was created around it. It has a hypnotic perspective, and isn’t something that necessarily sums up the events in the movie, but sums up a certain inner light that Starr’s character has awoken to – it is a highlight.

I was squirming through certain parts of the film – the obvious jokes, the medical marijuana scene, the low-key approach of Danner – but by the end I was hooked in a way, just because the film is about the everyday struggles of people, and many times the drama of that familiarity is just enough.

By PATRICK McDONALD Writer, Editorial Coordinator HollywoodChicago.com pat@hollywoodchicago.com