If Kevin Kline happened to inherit a house that came with an old lady as its chief tenant, he would not try to smoke her out. He's not that desperate.
The same cannot be said of his character, Mathias, a New Yorker who inherits a Parisian apartment from his estranged father only to discover that it comes with a caveat - a 90-something year old occupant (Maggie Smith). As it turns out, the apartment is a 'vainer,' a French real-estate agreement which means that Mathias cannot sell it until the current occupant…well…dies. Then there's the matter of her sharp-tongued daughter (Kristin Scott Thomas).
What is he to do? Desperate for cash, Mathias attempts to sell his contract, even resorting to blackmail. But there's more to it all than meets the eye.
At 75 years of age, Israel Horovitz, a prolific playwright, makes his feature-film directorial debut with MY OLD LADY, which he adapted from his own stage play - one of his favorite ones.
"Mathias spends the first third of the movie thinking the apartment is his problem," explains Horovitz, "and then he discovers that’s the least of his problems."
The door opens, and in fly the worst spectrums of his childhood and memories.
"It’s like one giant closet with somebody’s skeletons," adds Kline.
The most-produced American playwright in French theatre history, Horovitz would find himself making frequent trips to France, "I kept looking for apartments to buy and I kept seeing these viager [apartments] and I had no inkling what it was," he recalls. Finally it dawned on him just what was going on. They kept listing the age of the tenants. "So a 95-year-old is cheaper than a 75-year-old."
Potential buyers could access information not only about the homes, but also the inhabitants including their age, health, and even statistics on how long they might be expected to live. "So my first reaction as an American was, wow, this is barbaric," recalls Horovitz, "And then you start to think about it…"
Having spoken to others who have gone through the arrangement he realized it wasn't quite the worst of propositions: "If somebody’s really old and indigent, they’re secure and have a place to live for the rest of their lives. If they have no children, then why not? Or if they have children who have their own places and don’t need it, why not? It just adds security. What are they going to do, sell their house and then go into an old age home? They don’t want to do that. "
Although Horovitz and Kline have first met some 40 years ago, My Old Lady marks their first collaboration. The first time they sat down together to talk about the project, they found themselves chatting for nearly five hours. "Just that," quips Kline.
"Never getting around to the movie, just talking," clarifies Horovitz.
Since Kline has come on board, the film has seen many changes. "It transformed so erratically," says Kline, "It transformed over the years."
Even the source material itself, the play, has seen some drastic changes. An earlier version ending saw Mathias kill himself. Horovitz recalls a long conversation with his French agent after a reading, "She said, 'We’ve taken this journey with him and we’ve gone this whole distance with him and it tells us there’s no hope and you believe there’s no hope.' And I said, 'No, I think suicide is a permanent solution to temporary problems.' That’s what I really think. " So the ending changed.
"It’s a whole different animal," says Kline, "it’s changed over the years and it’s been interesting. Even when we were shooting it, it transformed."
Horovitz agrees, "Well, it just shows you that you work on something for a hundred years…" Almost.
For Kline, this was a chance to add another complicated character to his repertoire. "I enjoyed the complexity, the impenetrability," he recalls, "I couldn’t explain him in a simple declarative sentence. He was a puzzling mixture of various textures and tones and the piece itself had such a complicated tone, the existence between drama and comedy."
Some of the things that Kline really liked about his character were often the same things that he disliked about him. "His honesty, his candour, and his bluntness.
"I think every actor’s worst sin - that we’re all capable of - is we want to be loved. And the fact that he, well of course he wants to be loved, but he makes it really hard for people. I think it feels more authentic for that, and it was part of the attraction."
Of course working alongside Maggie Smith and Kristin Scott Thomas, shooting in Paris, was nothing to scoff at either.
There was more to shooting in France than better food and a different language, there's a different cinematic culture, says Kline. "When I first went to Paris to promote an American movie, journalists were asking questions as if I were talking about an art form, not a business. It was very different," he recalls, "I find that the films I shot in France, they’re more respectful and appreciative of whether you’re an actor or director."
There's also a difference on set: "The first time we shoot, you come to the set, kiss everybody; the light men, the cameramen, whoever, there’s touching and then 'bonjour, bonjour, bonjour' and then you get to work. In America, it’s noisy and it’s impersonal. "
"On Friday nights in France, the crew stays and drinks together," says Horovitz, "and Kevin, God Bless him was there every week to drink with the crew. So you get to know them. It was great."
MY OLD LADY is currently in its limited release in the US, expending into the UK and other countries in November.
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