Amazon.com Essentials:
Black comedies don't come much blacker than this cult favorite
from 1972, and they don't come much funnier, either. It seemed that
director Hal Ashby was the perfect choice to mine a mother lode of
eccentricity from the original script by Colin Higgins, about the
unlikely romance between a death-obsessed 19-year-old named Harold
(Bud Cort) and a life-loving 79-year-old widow named Maude (Ruth
Gordon). They meet at a funeral, and Maude finds something oddly
appealing about Harold, urging him to "reach out" and grab life by the
lapels as opposed to dwelling morbidly on mortality. Harold grows fond
of the old gal--she's a lot more fun than the girls his mother
desperately matches him up with--and together they make Harold &
Maude one of the sweetest and most unconventional love stories
ever made. Much of the earlier humor arises from Harold's outrageous
suicide fantasies, played out as a kind of twisted parlor game to
mortify his mother, who's grown immune to her strange son's
antics. Gradually, however, the film's clever humor shifts to a
brighter outlook and finally arrives at a point where Harold is truly
happy to be alive. Featuring soundtrack songs by Cat Stevens, this
comedy certainly won't appeal to all tastes (it was a box-office flop
when first released), but if you're on its quirky wavelength, it might
just strike you as one of the funniest movies you've ever
seen. --Jeff Shannon
