Harold & Maude

Harold and Maude (1971) was a dark comedy by director Hal Ashby. The story focused around Harold (Bud Cort) who is always staging fake suicides and attending funerals in order to feel alive. While at a funeral Harold meets an older lady named Maude (Ruth Gordon) who shares the same attraction to funerals that he does. Reluctant at the thought of forming a friendship with someone with the same hobby as him Harold goes on living everyday life with his mother at their estate. His mother pursues him to find a girlfriend and goes as far as signing him up for a dating service. Harold realizes that he has more in common with Maude than with any of the girls that the dating service paired him up with. Harold even falls in love with Maude and Maude falls in love with Harold and when Harold announces that he will marry Maude he receives the disapproval of his peers. On the eve of Maude’s 80^th birthday Harold throws her a surprise birthday party but Maude has other plans in store. Having taken an overdose of sleeping pills, Maude planned to die on her 80^th birthday stating that she “couldn’t imagine a lovelier farewell” it is at that point that Harold is no longer excited at the thought of death, but mortified by it at the thought of losing the one person he truly loves. This film teaches us that age is but a number and love comes in all ages. It also teaches us to appreciate life because at any given moment it can be taken away from us.