I just watched this film last night and was so overwhelmed by one scene that I had to stop watching I was so upset. A number of people posting here have said how they disliked Mathias; that he was grasping, selfish etc. They really should have listened harder. What Mathias was describing was an unhappy childhood. A child who has been emotionally neglected often grows up with a personality disorder. They feel abandoned, have low self esteem, develop addictive and self destructive tendencies like alcohol and gambling. They have no happy memories and are likely to have trouble maintaining relationships. They may seem greedy but sometimes at least money is something tangible since they get little pleasure from human interaction. All these symptoms are clearly expressed by Mathias. He hates his father, but the hatred does not make him feel better. The fact that his father has told other people he is worthless only adds insult to injury. The writer of this knows about this and it is the only time I have ever seen this condition expressed in a film. I know, because I am a neglectful criminal father who has destroyed his son's life.

A beautiful house in Paris is the setting for this troublesome drama where the presence of a little old lady (Maggie Smith at her most passive/aggressive gentleness) turns the new owner's (Kevin Kline) world upside down. He inherited the house from his late father and discovers much to his confusion that as the owner, he must pay rent to Smith and her rather serious daughter, Kristin Scott Thomas, who has enough troubles of her own to add him to her list of problems. Smith, it is quickly revealed, was an acquaintance of her father's, and as the lines of communication open between the three, more facts are revealed that turn Kline back to the bottle, break up Scott's own relationship with a married man, and reveal secrets that are heartbreaking and often shocking.

You can never go wrong with any movie that stars the now legendary Smith, the British Katharine Hepburn, whose tenacity to continue working has made her beloved. This isn't a Jean Brodie Maggie Smith, nor a Dora Charles Maggie Smith of "Murder By Death", and she is as far from her Lady Violet Crawley as she is from Little Lord Fauntleroy. A character of gentle breeding and much class, she teaches English to Europeans of other cultures living in Paris, and in one scene, must explain to one of her pupils of the very sexually explicit meaning of the book they are reading. There is no shock on her face, just minor amusement, and even when she confronts Kline with his return to the bottle, it is with much tenderness and concern. It turns out she knows more information as to why he drinks, and when Kline shares his most shocking secret with her, it is written on her face ever so briefly that her whole world is shattered because of it. The bond with Scott grows too, and they all learn that underneath their initial distrust of each other, they are now bonded forever.

This takes much patience to get into, but the three stars do their best to help the viewer maintain intentions. It is a gentle movie, almost nurturing in a way, and leaves the viewer with a very important lesson of how the generations create gaps simply because they unwillingly refuse to understand the older or younger ones. As old Rose said in "Titanic", "A woman's heart carries many secrets", and in the case of Smith's Mathilde Girard, she has more than her alleged 90 years can hold. The three give brilliant performances, almost quiet to the point where it seems like they are not at all acting. It's one of those sleeper movies that you'll have to sleep on to really be affected by it and one where your own relationships with older relatives, especially parents, will be forced out of whatever hiding spot they hold in your soul.

After you've seen a lot of movies, much of the time you start being able to figure out what's going to happen long before it happens. However, with My Old Lady, I found myself surprised many times...and that's one of the biggest reasons I liked this film. And fortunately, it's out this week on DVD.

When the film begins, Mathias (Kevin Klein) arrives in Paris to see his inheritance following his estranged father's death. This turns out to be a gorgeous and very valuable residence. But there is a serious problem, by law he cannot force the renter to leave. This isn't as bad as it sounds as the old lady, Mathilde (Maggie Smith),is very old! But things become more complicated as the film progresses because eventually he figures out that she was his father's long-term lover and her daughter, Chloé (Kirsten Scott Thomas),could just be his half-sister...which is a serious problem since he finds himself falling for her.

Now this plot sounds a lot like it could be a comedy and IMDb currently lists it as a comedy/drama. Well, this is clearly NOT the case. I expected it would be a comedy but it wasn't. It became darker and darker. Unlike the old Jack Lemmon film Avante, which heavily romanticized marital infidelities, this one goes the opposite direction. Mathias is NOT suddenly captivated with Mathilde nor is it all happiness and delight. Instead, he's furious--furious that his father was so cold and neglectful. So when Mathilde says what a wonderful guy he was, Mathias unloads his years of pain and loneliness onto her. This doesn't make for a pleasant film--but it does make for an incredibly honest and brave film. It also make for a film that seems like it's about real people--and we just don't get enough movies like that.

I strongly recommend you see this exceptional movie and I am really excited to see that it's only the second film directed by Israel Horovitz and it's done THIS well. In addition, he also wrote the play and the screenplay! I can't wait to see what he does next.