Transcendental Film - Hal Ashby's Harold and Maude

By Kylie Jane Wakefield
Collegian Editor
April 4, 2007

Harold and Maude is one of the most unconventionally heartwarming films ever made. When the plot is described to most people, they will probably dismiss the film as weird or sick, but in actuality it’s as sweet as apple pie and also touching to boot.

This 1971 Hal Ashby cult classic is darkly comedic, but conveys its deeper message with some lighthearted antics. Bud Cort plays Harold, a wealthy 20-something obsessed with death after a near-fatal accident. In the opening scene he mockingly hangs himself to gain his preoccupied mother’s attention. She finds his suicide stunts to be less than charming and more of an annoyance. Harold is in an existential rut and doesn’t even have a mother to turn to.

While frequenting one of his many weekly funerals, he meets Maude (Ruth Gordon), a 79-year-old who acts half her age. She has a more positive view on life and takes everything with a grain of salt. Basically, she and Harold are complete opposites at the beginning of the film. Maude is a Buddhist at heart; she expresses her philosophies about not relying on material objects for happiness as she simultaneously steals people’s cars. Harold is bewildered by his newfound friend and her seemingly outlandish behavior. One of the first things Maude asks Harold is if he sings or dances, to which he replies no. Maude says that she thought he didn’t, and it’s already obvious what’s in store for Harold.

Harold starts to warm up to Maude after running into her at another funeral. Together they ponder the existential questions in life, stir up trouble with the local police and have a grand old time to the soundtrack of Cat Stevens. Life becomes worth living for Harold because of Maude’s insight, wisdom and passion for everything in existence.

The relationship, however, does not develop without conflict. Harold’s mother tries to set him up with eligible young women through a dating service, but Harold will have nothing to do with it. After he protests, she encourages him to enlist in the Army, but her plan is foiled after a clever deploy involving Maude. Harold is finally honest with his mother and tells her he’s going to marry Maude, and his mother is, of course, disgusted. The situation is all too Freudian for her, and she does her best to discourage her son.

The Harold and Maude relationship is certainly one of the strangest ever created in cinema, but this love story is much more affecting than most others. You grow to love both characters for their humanity, and the relationship no longer becomes weird in any way, shape or form. Even the most skeptical person will come away from Harold and Maude feeling good.

The central idea of the film is about the better things in life, and even about how death is central to our existence. Maude teaches Harold not to take things so seriously because, in the end, all that matters is that you had fun while you could. Harold and Maude is a film that makes the viewer care about its characters and provokes thought about its meaningful subject matter. It’s one of the best on-screen love stories ever created, and it proves that “age ain’t nothing but a number.”

wakefieldk1@lasalle.edu