MAUDE IS NOT WHO SHE SEEMS

"Harold and Maude" (1971) -- 6/10

By Martin Zabell
(Wrote June 18, 2007)

I have never been so undecided about how to rate a movie.

"Harold and Maude" deserves a 10 for originality, black humor, storytelling, and chutzpah. On the other hand, it deserves a 1 for ickiness and its trite expressions of "live life" philosophy.

As the end of the movie approached, I felt inclined to give it an 8, but I changed my rating to a 6 and a "thumbs down" because of the ending.

My review includes spoilers as I explain my logic. Here's my problem with the movie – Maude's suicide contradicts the entire point of everything that happened earlier!!! If she died via a car accident or stroke or if she revealed a terminal illness, I would have given the movie an 8.

The writers exhibit thinking that infuriates me. They do NOT understand the difference between personality and character. I see this on the news whenever there is a murder and neighbors say the suspect is a "nice guy" because he starts conversations with them, smiles, and is friendly.

In fact, the suspect has a nice personality and the neighbors generally know little about his character. The same is true here. Maude appears happy and nice because she is extroverted. In fact, the movie's conclusion reveals she is unbelievably selfish and/or depressed.

She is very healthy so there is no reason to kill herself. The writers foreshadow Maude's suicide because she implies she will kill herself early in the movie. "It's all going to be over after Saturday," she says, a line I forgot about until the end. Yet, for most of the rest of the plot she befriends Harold, goes out with him, and responds in kind to his "I love you" remarks.

In short, Maude is a bad person – not the lover of life who inspires Harold.

I will NEVER accept the premise that dancing, as Harold does at the end, means a person changed. This was also a flaw in "Zorba The Greek" when the Brit acts like a wimp as his girlfriend is killed by a mob and the house of Zorba's wife is ransacked. Yet, I'm supposed to believe he changed because he danced. He was MORE wimpy at the end of the movie than he was at the start.

If Harold has a brain, his experience with Maude will make him MORE negative about life.

It's difficult to give a 6 to a movie I gave a "thumbs down," but I loved the eccentric supporting characters, the audacity of Maude's teenlike rowdiness, Harold's fake suicides, the non-dates with young women, and the character conflicts, especially the Harold-Mom relationship.

I watched the movie a second time to see if Harold ever talked to his mother before he briefly told her near the end that he was marrying Maude. The Mom spoke dozens, maybe hundreds, of lines to Harold. The son's only response was "I have a sore throat" – a line he delivered in front of several people. He NEVER responded to his Mom in one-on-one encounters.

The "Graduate On Steroids" was enjoyable, but failed because its creators do NOT understand that personality does NOT equal character.