In recent years, films about aging and death have taken on an unflinchingly bleak and frightening tone, particularly in awards shows like “Amour,” “Vortex” and “The Father.” What Holland prefers is a less bleak approach to her international Oscar nomination this year. Director Jilli de Jong’s “Memory Lane” is a sometimes raucous, ultimately serious comedy about an elderly couple who take a road trip to retrace some of the steps of their youth, perhaps for the last time. A huge hit on home turf earlier this year, De Jonge’s film is a well-crafted crowd-pleaser that should cross borders with relative ease… unlike its often bickering protagonists.
Jaap (Martin van Waardenberg) and Maartje (Lenny Brederfeld) have been married for nearly half a century. But despite their financial comfort, people over 70 aren’t exactly enjoying a harmonious retirement. He is an endless whiner, and his pessimistic view that “the world is burning” is reinforced by constantly watching television news – all of which is bad news, of course. He withdraws even from things that used to give him pleasure, like singing in the church choir, about which he complains: “All the good ones are gone.” Those who remain are all deaf.”
By contrast, Maartje still craves companionship and fun, two things her husband no longer provides. His negativity bothers him, and his preoccupation with himself seems to not have noticed her cognitive decline. When a worried old friend pointed it out, he brushed it off, stubbornly insisting that her erratic behavior was only meant to annoy him. However, things soon escalate to the point where they can no longer be separated, with a stray incident requiring her to be taken home by the police.
Perhaps feeling somehow like he’s running out of time, Martji focuses on visiting an old friend who wrote to him from Spain, remembering the good times they shared in the past while he was transferred to hospice care. A big trip is the last thing Yap, who can barely motivate himself to leave home, wants. However, he finally gave in and agreed to take them in their 30-year-old car to Barcelona. It’s a picturesque journey but one full of problems: Maartje is a disastrous navigator, prone to confusing strangers with long-time acquaintances, and suffering from bouts of confusion, panic, and mercurial, childish sentiment.
However, the destination is not just a bittersweet reunion with long-lost loved ones, but Gap’s realization of his taken-for-granted dependence on the partner who is leaving him…at least mentally, for reasons beyond anyone’s control. While Marijn de Wit’s film and the director’s tight script hang on the plot of Maartje’s spiraling dementia, its emotional arc rests on Jaap’s gradual return to full marital partnership. This development led to Van Waardenburgh winning the Golden Calf Award for Best Actor last month. (“Memory Lane,” whose original title “De Terugreis” was translated on screen as “Homeward,” also won best picture.) Breederveld is equally good as a natural free spirit whose frustrations about a very conventional life erupt in unexpected ways. Because she succumbs to dementia.
De Jonge’s fast-paced film covers a lot of ground both tonally and geographically without ever seeming rushed, overtly touristy, or heavy-handed in its mixture of humor and pathos. Its overall effect is not unlike another episodic autumn road trip story exactly fifty years ago, Paul Mazursky’s “Harry and Tonto.”