The Leisure Seeker

A film about an elderly couple's last journey in a camper van. John is a retired literature teacher whose memory is failing; some days he remembers everything, some days he does not know his wife. Ella has a serious illness and is refusing treatment. Without telling their children they get into their old camper and set out from Massachusetts for Florida. The destination is Ernest Hemingway's house in Key West; John had wanted to go for years. They stop along the way, project old slides onto walls, argue, and talk about things from the past. The hardest passages are not what John forgets but what he remembers. The narrative proceeds as a road film, but what matters is not the destination, it is the time remaining. The source is Michael Zadoorian's novel. Helen Mirren plays Ella and Donald Sutherland plays John. Paolo Virzì directed, his first film in English. An affecting example for anyone who likes drama about old age and illness. Before you watch, know this: the subject is dementia and death directly; the film begins in a light register and its ending is not.