MAX ROSE (2013) ¢ ¢ ¢
D: Daniel Noah
Jerry Lewis, Kerry Bishé, Kevin Pollack,
Claire Bloom, Dean Stockwell, Illeana Douglas,
Fred Willard, Lee Weaver, Mort Sahl
To begin with, this movie has a great performance by Jerry Lewis. Which I can now add to the list of things I've said that I never thought I'd say. Yes. Jerry Lewis. Lewis's character, Max Rose, is 87 years old, about the age Lewis was when he made the picture. (He was 90 by the time it got a U.S. release.) Max, like Lewis, is beyond being able to hide the cumulative effect of all those years. You can see it in the stooped posture, the shuffling gait, the blank stare, the way his mouth hangs open and his eyelids droop. Some of that's acting, of course. And some of it's not. The movie catches Max in a rough transition: the death of his wife Eva (Claire Bloom) and his move from their home to an assisted living facility. And there's a secret, not unlike the one Tom Courtenay and Charlotte Rampling had to deal with in "45 Years", something Max discovers while going through Eva's things. Sentiment kicks in eventually, and issues are resolved a little too neatly, but Lewis, long the world's most manic actor, never overplays his hand. (There's just one brief scene, where Max is clowning with his grandchildren, when the old Jerry surfaces, but it's only for a moment, and it fits in the context of the story.) What happens at the very end is a little obvious - the movie's been leading up to it the whole way - but it's a moment of transcendence for both Max and Jerry Lewis. A more perfect note for the old guy to go out on would be difficult to imagine.
Jerry Lewis
(1926-2017)
