Mrs. Palfrey

Many YouTube accounts have been dropping some wonderful free movies of late and I was able to catch Mrs. Palfrey at the Claremount, a 2005 film I somehow missed when it was just out of the gate.

It’s a lovely lyrical film with a most gentle soundtrack. Mrs. Palfrey is an elderly woman who takes a room in a sad residential hotel and takes her place as yet another lonely soul with no one to look out for her.

The hotel dining room, where the residents have their dinner each night, is particularly wrenching as all the guests eat by themselves at separate tables. They crave contact and yet, cannot quite make it happen. But that is certainly not the end of the story…not quite.

Mrs. Palfrey is a distinguished and elegant octogenarian who had a long and happy marriage with the love of her life who has since died and left her alone in the world. With a neglectful daughter and a disrespecting grandson, she continues to manage her life with dignity and kindness as best she can even though penetratingly curious eyes are all around her. Of course a series of events occur, some very amusing, some surprising and although the film is about those that have truly been forgotten and left behind, Mrs. Palfrey’s endless sense of decorum and grace circumvent the indignities of old-age.

Even though Mrs. Palfrey befriends a young chap (Ludo, played marvelously by Rupert Friend), this is not a “Harold and Maud” situation. That would most certainly not be Mrs. Palfrey (actress Joan Plowright). After watching the movie, I found a few more Plowright films where she played a similar character of the same age and ilk (Tea with Mussolini and I am David). I now love her and I am pleased to read that she still walks among us.

Lastly, this week, I read the novel that the movie was based on, authored by the mid-century writer Elizabeth Taylor and I didn’t care for it one bit. It was depressing when I realized that I was now privy to Ludo’s true thoughts about elderly women which is not part of the movie. Instead with the film, we have a beautiful life-enhancing and poignant story about an unlikely and brief friendship between two people whose lives would overlap for just a short time.

Unusually so, the film was far better than the book…

PS: Next time, Miss Pettigrew I hope.