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'The Last Word': Heartwarming tale of intergeneration, self-exploration
In her latest lead role, actress Shirley MacLaine brings an alpha female character to life.
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Learning curve: Two women at seemingly opposite ends of their lives, 81-year-old Harriet Lauler (left, played by Shirley MacLaine) and the much younger Anne Sherman (Amanda Seyfried), are discovering different sides of themselves by learning from one another. (CGV Blitz Megaplex/File)
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eteran Hollywood actress Shirley MacLaine has been prolific in playing lead roles in several films in the past few years. She played the protagonist in a film called Wild Oats in 2016 alongside actress Jessica Lange. The film’s premise centered on two old women who go on a trip to a Canary Islands resort after they lose their husbands.
She and actor Christopher Plummer starred in a romantic comedy in 2014 called Elsa & Fred.
This year the 82-year-old returned to the silver screen in a comedy-drama called The Last Word directed by Mark Pellington, alongside actress Amanda Seyfried.
The story tells a tale of the intersecting paths between two women who come from different generations and the dynamics between them.
MacLaine plays Harriett Lauler, an 81-year-old advertising businesswoman who came from a time when it was very difficult for women to attain a higher education and pursue business careers.
Lauler’s journey of taking risks and being ahead of her time turns her into a hardened and bitter person. She becomes aggressive, domineering, controlling and highly critical of other people. Lauler, however, is also adventurous and seems to enjoy her life immensely.
She is such a control freak that she eventually decides to have her obituary written before she dies, so she can supervise the writing process. She meets a young newspaper journalist specializing in obituaries, Anne Sherman (played by Seyfried).
Sherman is low-key and lives a modest life, so when she interacts with Lauler, a personality clash occurs. The controlling Lauler soon teaches Sherman — who apparently knows more about obituaries — that great obituaries have four elements: family, friends, co-workers and legacy.
While Lauler wants to be portrayed as someone who has a grand life after she dies, Sherman discovers during her field reporting experiences that nobody could say nice things about the prominent businesswoman. Everybody, from family members to community members, has had unpleasant experiences with her.
Lauler is a gossip who likes to bring everyone else down. She likes to mock people, give back-handed compliments and interrupt people while they talk.
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Having found that nobody says nice things about her in the obituary, Lauler decides that her life is not over yet and decides to rewrite her life with regard to friends, family, coworker and legacy.
This is when the story abandons the alpha female character stereotype and starts to peel off layers upon layers that expose Lauler’s character complexity.
In some ways, the film is funny because MacLaine succeeds in playing a real-life, believable performance of the bothersome central character.
Most of us have probably dealt with people who are domineering, aggressive, self-righteous and hyper-critical, having probably been hurt by their ways of devaluing others. In this case, seeing MacLaine comically enact such a personality type is quite relatable.
The story also helps the audience to see past such behavioral traits as it helps us to empathize with the central character and think about issues of aging and post-power syndrome. These are issues that, although present in our day-to-day lives, rarely get discussed.
The film has something to offer people of all ages: self-exploration can happen in every stage of life and these explorations are always worth striving for.
This sounds cliché, but the film presents this idea creatively. All you need to do is to take a look.
