Synopsis
Mathias Gold is a down-on-his-luck New Yorker who inherits a Parisian apartment from his estranged father. But when he arrives in France to sell the vast domicile, he's shocked to discover a live-in tenant who is not prepared to budge. His apartment is a viager—an ancient French real estate system with complex rules pertaining to its resale—and the feisty Englishwoman Mathilde Girard, who has lived in the apartment with her daughter Chloé for many years, can by contract collect monthly payments from Mathias until her death.
Votre Filmothèque
Cast
- Maggie SmithMathilde Girard
- Kevin KlineMathias Gold
- Kristin Scott ThomasChloé Girard
- Dominique PinonMonsieur Lefebvre
- Michael BurstinRabbi on Bicycle
- Elie WajemanMan at Gate
- Noémie LvovskyDr. Florence Horowitz
- Stéphane De GroodtPhillippe
- Stéphane FreissFrançois Roy
Recommandations
- 75
RogerEbert.com
My Old Lady is pretty compelling viewing, mostly thanks to Kline, who gives a career-high performance here. - 70
The Hollywood Reporter
Kline remains a pleasure to watch, surviving the character's deepening self-pity and making his suspiciously unwriterly carelessness with words (he refers to the trophy head of a wild boar as a "cow") almost charming. - 63
McClatchy-Tribune News Service
The venerable acting firm of Smith-Kline & Scott Thomas make certain that this Paris trip is anything but a waste. - 60
The Dissolve
My Old Lady isn’t the tart slice of dessert that its initial scenes suggest it might be. In fact, it only becomes truly compelling in its second half, as Horovitz drives toward darker material and farther away from the light. - 60
The New York Times
As the truth tumbles out, the dialogue and the carefully timed revelations make My Old Lady seem increasingly stagy. But the performances go a long way toward camouflaging the screenplay’s clunky mechanics. - 50
Variety
Its translation from stage to screen looks to have been a bit rocky, and the film never manages to transcend its actors-workshop aura and develop into something deeper. - 50
The Playlist
Though Horovitz's directing is workmanlike solid, and while the movie has a certain charm that makes it easy to walk in the door, it gives you little reason to stay. - 40
Village Voice
It sounds like a recipe for comedy (and Kline seems to think so too, waltzing and prat-falling through Mathias's alcoholic foibles), but Horovitz's screenplay guns instead for an emotionally and financially tangled melodrama, and ends up feeling aggravatingly inconsistent.
