The Leisure Seeker (2017)

Directed by: Paolo Virzì | 112 minutes | adventure, comedy | Actors: Helen Mirren, Donald Sutherland, Kirsty Mitchell, Janel Moloney, Joshua Mikel, Chelle Ramos, Christian McKay, Joshua Hoover, Robert Walker Branchaud, Elijah Marcano, Helen Abell, Robert Pralgo, Dick Gregory

One morning, the demented John Spencer (Donald Sutherland) and his ailing wife Ella (Helen Mirren) set out in their campervan ‘Leisure Seeker’. Wanting to take one last trip, they head for Ernest Hemingway’s home in Key West, Florida. As a retired English teacher, John is a big fan of the writer, but has never been to his former home. The couple has kept the journey and destination a secret from their children. Understandably, son Will (Christian McKay) and daughter Jane (Janel Moloney) become increasingly concerned as they stay away longer and the sporadic phone calls get weirder and weirder. During their road trip, they meet all kinds of people and the viewer learns more about their background and relationship, as they both continue to deteriorate physically and mentally.

It’s a shame that ‘The Leisure Seeker’ has become an unbalanced film that rarely finds the right tone. With this, the Italian director Paolo Virzì completely overlooks what could have been a wonderful film about the power of love, old age and decay, carried by two top actors. It’s hard sometimes not to think of ‘Iris’, who handled the same theme in a much better way. Sutherland and Mirren are solid, but don’t really take the film to the next level. Mirren’s character Ella is originally from South Carolina, which leaves her with an unconvincing Southern accent. Their class as actors makes the affection and irritation between the pair convincing and Sutherland in particular strikes a chord with his understated playing as the erudite John, who sporadically realizes that his mental faculties are on the wane.

The actors deserved a better story and a better director. It seems that director Virzì has made a less successful attempt to give the film a tragicomic touch. The problem is that it doesn’t quite work. Some sad moments take on an unnecessarily light-hearted touch that feels untruthful. This results in scenes that are neither tragic nor comic, but above all evoke a feeling of unease. For example, there is a strange scene in the film, in which the couple visits an old love of Ella (coincidentally on the route), which adds nothing to the plot and only raises questions about the intentions of the makers.

The same applies especially to the setting during the 2016 presidential election campaign. The viewer sees supporters of candidates Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton in action without further context and explanation. For example, we see the lifelong Democrat John suddenly enthusiastically chanting slogans with the Trump fans. Perhaps the intent is to make a connection with John’s dementia, but even that remains rather vague.

What further hinders the film is that the supporting roles are so poorly developed. Neighbor Lilian (Dana Ivey) and the characters of Will and Jane are mere templates, and the episodic set-up makes encounters with other campers, bikers, store clerks, criminals, waitresses, a skeptical police officer and all manner of caregivers a check-off list of stops on the way to Key West . ‘The Leisure Seeker’ works towards a denouement that the viewer can already see coming for miles, so that the endless digressions at a certain point evoke slight boredom. And of course that could never have been the intention with this sensitive matter.