"Age Old Friends"

"Age Old Friends" is an HBO movie adapted by Bob Larbey from his Broadway play, "A Month of Sundays."  It stars Hume Cronyn as John Cooper -- a crochety, physically frail but mentally sharp retirement home resident -- and Vincent Gardenia as Michael Aylott - another resident who is easygoing and in excellent health but his mind is beginning to fail him.  Cooper and Aylott have developed a friendship as fellow residents in what appears to me to be a somewhat posh retirement home where residents have private rooms or suites furnished with their personal belongings.  Cooper is a widower and misses his wife but his daughter, son-in-law, and grandson come to visit him every Sunday making a "long" trip that seems to end in shorter visits each week.  His grandson is the light of his life.

Aylott comes by Cooper's room daily to try to entice him out for a walk in the neighborhood with him -- to the candy store -- but Cooper had a fall in front of other residents and is afraid to risk falling again and humiliating himself in front of others.  He gets around with a cane but his legs don't always respond the way he commands them to.

Thrown into this mix is a young nurse that Cooper makes passes at every time she comes to his room which is often since she brings his meals.  They have a good rapport and he is sad when he learns she has recently become engaged and will be moving away once she marries.  There's also the cleaning woman who is just as crochety as Cooper and gives back as good as she gets.  She claims she cleans his room (even though it's not on her schedule) to spare her fellow employee from having to deal with him.

Life in the retirement home has been going along in a nice routine but there are always those residents who die in the night or begin to lose their mental sharpness and are referred to by Cooper and Aylott as the Zombies.  When Cooper begins to see some mental decline in Aylott and Aylott starts getting lost going to the candy store on his own, they each look to the other for reassurance but also for honesty.  Is Cooper losing his friend Aylott with whom he enjoys chess games and whiskey in Aylott's daily visits to his room?

When Cooper's daughter invites him to move in with her family, his favorite nurse is leaving to get married, and Aylott seems to be moving more toward Zombie land, Cooper has some choices to make.  This is a touching story of friendship told with honesty and humor.  pazt