Review: I'll See You in My Dreams

You can live with loneliness for a long time and keep it well at bay. Widowed for over 20 years, retired schoolteacher Carol Peterson (Blythe Danner) has settled into a comfortable and uncomplicated existence. Time is whiled away in her well-appointed suburban home, her beloved dog Hazel by her side, when not having bridge parties, playing a round of golf, or gossiping with her three best friends (Rhea Perlman, June Squibb, and Mary Kay Place), all of whom live in the nearby retirement community. Then comes the day when Hazel is too sick to be her faithful companion, and suddenly there is nothing to keep Carol company but her loneliness.

I'll See You in My Dreams, writer-director Brett Haley's superb second feature, observes the period following Hazel's death when Carol finds herself tiptoeing outside the familiar confines of her now disrupted routine. She strikes an unlikely friendship with Lloyd (Martin Starr), the young man hired to clean her swimming pool. Lloyd is a fellow lost soul who has recently moved back home; he doesn't think his mom enjoys having him around but she is elderly and he wants to be responsible and do the right thin. Lloyd and Carol bond over glasses of wine and music - she used to sing in a band before she woke up one day to discover there was no more singing to be done.

They attend karaoke night at a local bar where her rendition of "Cry Me a River" evokes enthusiastic applause from the slight audience. There's an understanding Carol and Lloyd share despite their generational differences, a knowledge that perhaps this is all life has to offer. At a later point in the film, Carol notes that all her accomplishments are in the past - she was a singer, she was a schoolteacher, she was a wife, she was a mother. One of the many wonderful things about Haley's film is how open-hearted and generous and deeply human it is. Haley's tale lingers in several dark and sometimes unexpected corners, but it never feels cheap or maudlin.

Carol comes to learn that life involves living, and that means allowing friendship, love, and the happiness and heartache that come with caring for people back into her life. Her bond with Lloyd is an intriguing one - it is one of genuine friendship but there is also an emotional intimacy there that is not quite romantic, and yet there are moments in their behaviour that would suggest otherwise. More conventional, but no less endearing, is the romance between Carol and Bill, the sexy and laidback silver fox perfectly embodied by Sam Elliott. "We're not going to try hard. We're gonna sit out here and enjoy ourselves," he tells her on their first date, and the statement serves as the film's unofficial mission statement. Indeed, it is worth the price of multiple admissions to watch and savour their courtship as it blossoms. Their romance is not the main focus of I'll See You in My Dreams, and yet it resonates so strongly that it handily triumphs over recent twilight romances such as Elsa & Fred, 5 Flights Up, and And So It Goes.

There are neverending pleasures to be had with this jewel of a film. Haley's delicate touch ensures each scene is suffused with warmth and feeling. A simple shot of Carol sitting at the bar aches with solitude, whilst the blurred foregrounding of a vase of daisies breaks your heart in the best of ways. Even moments like Carol and her girlfriends getting high, which could have predictably slipped into the sitcomish, feel fresh and uncontrived. The whole film is simple to summarise, but any description would fail to convey how thoroughly wondrous, beautiful, inspiring, and heartwarming this film is.

Starr, best known for Freaks and Geeks and Silicon Valley, displays a vulnerability and depth heretofore unseen. It almost feels like watching a completely new actor emerge. The main attraction, of course, is Danner who gifts the film and its viewers with her irresistible glow.

I'll See You in My Dreams

Directed by: Brett Haley

Written b: Mark Basch, Brett Haley

Starring: Blythe Danner, Martin Starr, Sam Elliott, Malin Akerman, Rhea Perlman, Mary Kay Place, June Squibb