Search The Archive
Who says sex is just for the under-50 set? Debra Winger stars in her first lead role for more than 20 years in this wry, tender-hearted paean to the triumphs and travails of middle-aged love and lust.
Long-married couple Mary (Debra Winger) and Michael (Tracy Letts, seen in both Christine and Indignation at MIFF 2016) are the very picture of midlife relationship dissatisfaction. Comfortable to the point of boredom, with an adult son who's already flown the coop, they're both having affairs with younger people, finding in them the thrill that left their own marriage so long ago. But as they prepare to make a final break, something strange happens: they start falling in love all over again.
Indie wunderkind Azazel Jacobs (Doll & Em, MIFF 2014) turns in another deftly observed take on the unexpected twists and turns of modern life with The Lovers. Anchored by knock-out performances from Winger and Letts, Jacobs' film is a refreshingly subtle take on infidelity and a witty, frank reminder that stories of middle age are an all-too-rare pleasure on our cinema screens.
'A wry, openhearted, vaguely outré romantic comedy, albeit a bittersweet one … proves that love after 50 isn't science-fiction.' – TIME
