The charm of Paris fills the screen as Matthias (Kevin Kline) heads purposefully down a street where even the graffiti (“Today is the Shadow of Tomorrow”) reads like a Sorbonne undergrad thesis. He arrives at one of those magnificent old apartment blocks with massive double wooden doors opening onto a cobblestone courtyard. Up winding steps he goes, calling “Hello? Ah, bon jour?” from his hesitant memory of high school French. He finally finds an old woman, Mathilde (Maggie Smith), napping in an easy chair. He’s about to be in for a series of shocks.
Written and directed and by playwright Israel Horovitz, My Old Lady’s plot device concerns Matthias’ inheritance of that grand if slightly worn apartment. Broke and counting on selling the place, he finds that under French law, he can’t evict Mathilde because she has a lifetime lease. Matthias is a loser at love, a failed novelist and a glib-talking sad sack. In funny moments Kline seems to channel Bob Hope with his rapid-fire quips, but the reason for his sadness become clear as the story progresses.
Unlike Hollywood movies that try to bring laughter together with tears, Horovitz has finely tuned the harmony of comedy and tragedy. Sex, secrets and lies have bound Matthias to Mathilde in ways he could never have imagined.
Rounding out My Old Lady’s top-flight cast is Kristin Scott Thomas as Chloe, Mathilde’s daughter, who greets the Ugly American who wants to sell their apartment with understandable hostility.
Opens Friday, Oct. 10 at the Oriental Landmark Theatre
