This year at TIFF, I was glad to see how many movies there were starring older women. All of these films featured women who were strong, complex, and compelling.
Society has an aversion to images of women ageing
In the horror film, The Substance, Demi Moore plays an actress, Elizabeth Sparkle, who yearns to regain the freshness and allure of her youth. She purchases a questionable substance that’s designed to return her to her former beauty, but her desperation leads her to overuse it, leading to horrific consequences.
This movie is an indictment of our attitudes toward older women and a society in which women incrementally lose their value as they age. The horror aspects of this film are a parallel for the horrific lengths that women will go to in order to preserve their looks, and the horrifying ways that women are denigrated, simply for getting older.
The Last Showgirl: a tragedy about the illusion of beauty
Another film about women ageing is The Last Showgirl. It stars two magnificent actresses: Pamela Anderson and Jamie Lee Curtis. They play ageing showgirls; Curtis having been forced to retire a few years back, and now reduced to working as a cocktail waitress, and Anderson, facing the end of her career as her show closes after a 30-year run.
Curtis plays Anette, an alcoholic, gambling addict and lost soul. Her desire for validation is painfully evident when she climbs up on a platform and dances to a random song in the middle of the casino where she’s supposed to be serving drinks. Her desperate need to be seen and desired is uncomfortable to watch, but also incredibly moving.
Anderson plays Shelley, a showgirl who gave up love, family, and emotional intimacy, in order to pursue her career.
Her need to be beautiful and special has eclipsed her ability to connect with the people in her life. At 57, she has few career options and only one friend.
She pushes away one of the young dancers who comes to her in crisis because she’s not emotionally equipped to cope. She reaches out to her estranged daughter and to her former boyfriend, but the interactions are strained. She doesn’t know how to be close to people.
This movie is a tragedy about the illusion of beauty and desirability. Although not as overly horrific as The Substance, it is horrifying in the way the characters have relinquished everything meaningful to pursue the false dream of stardom on the Las Vegas stage. The outcome for Shelly and Annette may not be as grotesque as it is for Elizabeth, but it’s just as tragic.
The Mother and the Bear explores the dangers of living through your children
In the film, The Mother and the Bear, Korean actress Kim Hi-Jung plays Sara, the mother of a young woman, Sumi, who has had an accident in Winnipeg, where she now lives. Sara rushes to Winnipeg to care for her daughter.
Since Sumi is in a medically induced coma, and there is nothing for Sara to do at the hospital, she makes kimchi and set up an online profile, pretending to be Sumi, in the hopes that when her daughter wakes up, there will be a group of appropriate suitors waiting to take her out.
As the movie progresses, it becomes clear that Sara‘s obsession with finding Sumi a husband come from her own early widowhood, and the misguided belief that having a man in one’s life is what will bring a woman happiness and security.
What Sara doesn’t realize is that Sumi already has someone in her life who is making her happy. It’s just not who Sara had envisioned.
When Sara meets Sam, the owner of a Korean restaurant in Winnipeg, she is saddened to see him rejecting his own son for being involved with a woman who’s not Korean.
Sara’s evolution comes in her realization that the older generation must allow their children to love who they choose.
Daughter’s Daughter looks at the way women are often constrained in the choices that they make
In the movie, Daughter’s Daughter, the Taiwanese actress Sylvia Chang plays a mother who has made some difficult choices in her life. While living in New York City as a teenager, she gave up a baby, Emma, for adoption, and returned to Taiwan. There, she married and raised another daughter, Zuer.
Divorced and living alone in Taipei, Ai is estranged from Emma and has just lost Zuer in a tragic car accident in New York City, where she had gone with her partner to do in vitro fertilization
While in New York, Ai is faced with two challenges: what to do with the viable embryo that Zuer left to her, and how to deal with Emma, who is awkward and prickly around her.
Ai is full of doubts about her ability to be a mother at this stage of her life, especially since she’s also dealing with her own elderly mother who is in a care home, suffering from dementia. And she is clearly pained by Emma’s presence in her life.
This film is about the choices we make as women, and the repercussions of these choices, as we get older. Ai is a daughter, a mother, and potentially a grandmother, contemplating raising this unborn child as her own. The emotional fallout of her long-ago decision is affecting her ability to make choices about her life, today. The interplay of past, present, and future makes this film emotionally resonant and extremely satisfying to watch.
These are only some of the TIFF24 films that feature older women but they give a good cross-section of the themes being explored. I hope this trend continues because clearly, older women have a lot to say and their hopes, dreams, and journeys are fascinating to share.
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