David Duneman

Expository Writing

Joe Serio

4/7/13

Harold and Maude

            I can not really say I liked this movie very much, because I really did not, but there were aspects or themes that are note-worthy throughout the film. I just do not buy the whole premise of a young boy like Harold falling in love with an eighty year old woman like Maude. I believe that that kind of time gap between two people can only be sewn with money or fame and fortune. This film addresses the topic of a couple where one of them is quite significantly older than the other, but takes it to the highest extreme. This is a known topic in the news and what not. We all hear about the Hollywood couples where the dude is like eighty years old and he is dating a smoking hot twenty year old, which always raises questions like “What the hell do they have in common?” or “How could that not just be about money?” They probably made it how they did with a purpose. They probably wanted to parody those kinds of relationships, so they switched it around to where the woman was eighty years old and the boy was the younger of the two.

            I also liked the theme of Harolds’ suicidal thoughts and outcries. The first time he faked his death, at the beginning of the film, I thought he was really dead and did not want to watch anymore, but that scene served as a good tension builder and reliever into his whole theme of theatrical suicidal skits. How his mom always assumes that it is not a real suicide serves as the humor in the situation, she must have had a hell of a time figuring out that every time it is just a skit. This reminds me of the Don’t Cry Wolf story. Every time Harold pretends to commit suicide it is like he is crying wolf to his mother, sure he probably had her scared shitless the first few times but she caught on and now does not believe it, and even if he really did commit suicide she would not believe him. This theme in the film is just an aspect to make light of a dark reality.

            One of my favorite parts was the scene where Harold and Maude are shown naked in bed, as if to have just had sex, and Harold, instead of the doing the cliché smoking a cigarette, is blowing bubbles which is kind of a similar motion of breathing in and out.

            This was not a very good movie and probably not one ill watch again.