The young Harold lives in his own world of suicide-attempts and funeral visits to avoid the misery of his current family and home environment. Harold meets an 80-year-old woman named Maude who also lives in her own world yet one in which she is having the time of her life. When the two opposites meet they realize that their differences don’t matter and they become best friends and love each other.
Nominated for 1 BAFTA Film Award2 wins & 3 nominations total
Top Critics Reviews
rotten:
The visual style makes everyone look fresh from the Wax Museum, and all the movie lacks is a lot of day-old gardenias and lilies and roses in the lobby, filling the place with a cloying sweet smell. Nothing more to report today.
– Roger Ebert,
Chicago Sun-Times,
23 Oct 2004
rotten:
[Bud Cort and Ruth Gordon] both are so aggressive, so creepy and off-putting.
– Vincent Canby,
New York Times,
9 May 2005
fresh:
It is most successful when it keeps to the tone of an insane fairystory set up at the beginning of the movie.
– Derek Adams,
Time Out,
24 Jun 2006
rotten:
Simpleminded, but it's fairly inoffensive, at least until Ashby lingers over the concentration-camp serial number tattooed on Gordon's arm. Some things are beyond the reach of whimsy.
– Dave Kehr,
Chicago Reader,
24 Oct 2007
fresh:
The fact that [it] isn't very funny and, like its 80-year-old heroic, long outlives its necessary life, is less important than the fact that the characters frequently react gently or like credible human beings to the script's impossible notions.