Our Souls at Night (2017)

Our Souls at Night is the Netflix film adaption of the novel by Kent Haruf. With Robert Redford retiring this could well be his final film appearance, and its a nice note to go out on, reteaming him as it does with thrice previous co-star Jane Fonda. Redford plays a widowed teacher living in a small planes state town, whose boring life is reinvigorated when a widowed neighbor he has known for decades (Fonda) asks him if he'd like to sleep with her. This isn't a sexual thing (at least not at first), rather she is just asking if he would like to sleep in the same bed with her, talk, and generally recapture the sense of casual intimacy that has been missing form each of their lives since the deaths of their respective spouses. This is a nicely low-key movie, much of it consisting simply of conversation, from the mundane to the heartbreaking, as each shares with the other the joys and heartaches of their long lives. There is a subplot involving Fonda watching her young grandson over the summer, but for much of the film very little really happens, and that's what's great about. Watching these old hands late in their careers quietly ruminate on the variability of life. ***1/2