Grumpier Old Men
| Grumpier Old Men | |
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 Theatrical release poster |
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| Directed by | Howard Deutch |
| Produced by | John Davis Richard C. Berman |
| Written by | Mark Steven Johnson |
| Starring | Jack Lemmon Walter Matthau Ann-Margret Ann Guilbert Sophia Loren Kevin Pollak Daryl Hannah Burgess Meredith |
| Music by | Alan Silvestri |
| Cinematography | Tak Fujimoto |
| Editing by | Billy Weber Seth Flaum Maryann Brandon |
| Distributed by | Warner Bros. |
| Release date(s) | December 22, 1995 |
| Running time | 101 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Budget | US:$25,000,000 (est.) |
| Box office | US:$71,000,000 (est.) |
Grumpier Old Men is a 1995 romantic comedy film, and a sequel to the 1993 film Grumpy Old Men. The film stars Jack Lemmon, Walter Matthau, Ann-Margret, and Sophia Loren, with Burgess Meredith, Daryl Hannah, Kevin Pollak, Katie Sagona, Ann Morgan Guilbert. Grumpier Old Men was directed by Howard Deutch, with the screenplay written by Mark Steven Johnson and the original music score composed by Alan Silvestri. The film was Meredith's final motion picture appearance. He was already suffering from Alzheimer's disease and had to be gently coached through his role in the film.
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[edit] Plot
The lifelong feud between Max (Walter Matthau) and John (Jack Lemmon) has cooled, though they still continue to call each other "moron" and "putz", but now with affection. Their children, Melanie (Daryl Hannah) and Jacob (Kevin Pollak), have become engaged after a brief relationship. Meanwhile, John is enjoying his marriage to wife Ariel (Ann-Margret), which occurred at the end of the first film.
The spring and summer fishing season is also in full swing in Wabasha, Minnesota, with the annual quest to catch "Catfish Hunter", the lake's largest catfish, consuming the fishing community. However, the local bait shop closed after the death of its proprietor Chuck in the first film. New arrival to Wabasha, Maria Ragetti (Sophia Loren), has purchased the building with the intent of converting it into a fancy Italian restaurant. Max and John join forces to try to sabotage the restaurant and succeed to a point, enough to make Ariel force John to go over to the restaurant and apologize to Maria for what he's done. Originally, John doesn't want to do it, and is encouraged by Max to tell Ariel so, which results in John moving in with Max as Ariel throws him out of the house. John eventually breaks down, and goes to apologize to Maria after realizing that Max lives a slovenly (almost squalor-like) lifestyle at his home.
Things go awry, however, when John and Maria trade shots of grappa over the conversation. He tells her that he's happily married with Ariel for six months. Maria mentions that her marriage with Antonio ended badly before it began. Eventually, John drinks too much and passes out, waking up the next morning in the restaurant, leading Ariel and Max to believe that the two slept together. However, Maria's mother Francesca (Ann Morgan Guilbert) stops the confrontation by revealling three things: the first is that she and John's father are in a relationship, Maria has no interest in John and is in fact infatuated with Max, to everyone's surprise.
While out in his boat one day Max finds Maria on the lake fishing, and the shared interest helps to begin a romance between the two. However, Maria calls it off thanks to Francesca reminding her of five failed marriages in the past, and Max is bewildered and disappointed.
To complicate things further, Jacob and Melanie's wedding plans are causing the couple stress, due to their fathers' apparent inability to plan a proper wedding. After John decides to book "Handsome Hans", Wabasha's "polka king" for the wedding, Melanie finally snaps and she and Jacob get into a huge argument, which results in the wedding being called off and the two to live separately. Upon hearing the news, John and Max call off their truce and reignite their feud.
Once again, Max and John resort to childish pranks to get back at each other, which include: Max broadcasting a video of John sitting still, naked, for a statue Ariel was making of him, Max disconnecting John's outboard motor, John cutting Max's fishing net and boat anchor line, and John's cat Slick spending the night inside Max's truck clawing the "authentic imitation leather" on the seats. This leads to the climax of the feud. Max adopts a one-eyed bulldog named Lucky, who chases Slick into John's house, messing up the house, and causing the statue of John to break. Seeing the destruction of the statue, Ariel moves out, telling John she isn't coming back until the two are done fighting.
In addition, Max had another date scheduled for Maria, but her mother will not let her go because Maria has been heartbroken five times in her past marriages and she fears that Max will make it six. Maria does not show up for their date and Max tries in vain to get in contact with her.
Saddened over Ariel leaving and moving in with Melanie, John goes to the lake to fish with his father (Burgess Meredith) and get some advice of what to do about what had just happened. However, Grandpa has died on the couch he used to fish on. At his funeral, his ashes are scattered in the lake, in front of everyone. Max and John call off their feud again when they bond over John's father. The two also help Jacob and Melanie reunite after their brief estrangement and the wedding is apparently back on. Before leaving to reconcile with Ariel, John convinces Max to try again with Maria, telling him to "park that stupid pride of his" and tell her how he really feels. Max decides to visit Maria at Ragetti's.
Max stops to see Maria, but her mother refuses to let him in. He doesn't give up and comes in anyway by telling Francesca that he refuses to leave until he sees her. Maria doesn't want to see him, but she eventually comes out. She comes clean by telling Max the truth on how many times she's actually been married. He was only aware of one marriage, to a man named Antonio and could be implied that John told him about it. Max decides then to explain to Maria he's not like the other 5 men she was with and that he knows how to treat a lady. In telling her how he truly feels, the two rekindle their romance.
Much like the first film, a wedding is to take place at the end. On the way to the wedding, however, Max and John see a fellow fisherman who has come in contact with Catfish Hunter and is staggering around bewildered after being unable to catch him. Max convinces John that they should take one more try at catching the fish, considering his boat is nearby. John agrees, and the two set out to catch Catfish Hunter in spite of all the damage John did to Max's boat earlier in the film. The two manage to reel in the large catfish and have him in the boat, but John says that they should throw him back. He reminds Max that his father had been trying to catch Catfish Hunter for twenty years, and the two should be in the lake together. Therefore, Catfish Hunter is returned to the lake and the duo rushes to the church for the wedding, which turns out to be Max's wedding to Maria (which is not revealed until Max and John arrive at the church; it is implied that it is Jacob and Melanie's wedding, but the two had eloped prior to this). Max and Maria are wed and drive away in the limousine to their reception to be held at Maria's restaurant, which will also serve as the town's bait shop again. As in the first film, a trick is played on the newlyweds in the limo on the way to the reception. Max and Maria were kissing and looked up to see Lucky looking back. They are startled at first, but realized that they're smelling Lucky. John had put the dog in the front seat to stink up the limo as revenge for the prank Max pulled on him with a dead fish.
[edit] Subplots
As in Grumpy Old Men, several subplots are present in Grumpier Old Men. In addition to the sabotage of the restaurant and Max and John's poor wedding planning, Grandpa Gustafson again shows his perverted side. Unlike in the first film, where he had designs on most of the women of Wabasha, in the second film, Grandpa's perverted streak is largely due to his desire to have a relationship with Francesca Ragetti. At one point in the film, it is suggested that he succeeds, with Francesca finally being charmed by his overtures and dropping a rose into the water after his cremated remains are dumped in the lake. A second subplot with Grandpa Gustafson concerns his advancing age, as he is 95 and remarks that God must have forgotten about him. (When he dies, John remarks "Looks like God remembered you, Pop.") In the first film, Melanie's daughter Allie was a toddler, but in the second film her character was advanced to grade school age and played by a different actress, with added hints that she did not accept her mother's relationship with Jacob, but that had changed by the end of the movie.
[edit] Cast
- Walter Matthau as Max Goldman
- Jack Lemmon as John Gustafson
- Ann-Margret as Ariel Gustafson
- Sophia Loren as Maria Sophia Coletta Raghetti
- Ann Morgan Guilbert as Mama Ragetti
- Burgess Meredith as Grandpa Gustafson
- Daryl Hannah as Melanie Gustafson
- Kevin Pollak as Jacob Goldman
- Katie Sagona as Allie (Melanie's daughter)
[edit] Reception
Grumpier Old Men grossed $71 million domestically on a budget of $25 million. While some have said that this was less successful than the original, Grumpier Old Men beat its predecessor's total of $70 million and cost $10 million less to make than the original. However, critical reception was not as kind, as the film currently only holds an 18% "rotten" rating on Rotten Tomatoes. However, the movie holds a 65% "fresh" rating among Rotten Tomatoes' community members.
[edit] Sequel
Following Grumpier Old Men's box-office success, Warner Bros. suggested making a third film in the series entitled Grumpiest Old Men. The plot was going to involve Max and Maria going to Italy on a honeymoon where they are confronted by Maria's ex-husband (to be played by Marcello Mastroianni), who would attempt to contest Maria's marriage to Max on the grounds that his own divorce from Maria was never finalized. Lemmon, Matthau, and Loren were going to commit to making the sequel a few years after Grumpier Old Men. The sequel was never made, however. After Lemmon and Matthau starred in the financial flop Out to Sea in 1997 and the critical and financial disaster The Odd Couple II in 1998, Warner Bros. decided not to make the film. Any potential reconsideration ended with the deaths of Mastroianni in 1996, Matthau in 2000, and Lemmon in 2001.
[edit] External links
- Grumpier Old Men at the Internet Movie Database
- Grumpier Old Men at AllRovi
- Grumpier Old Men at the TCM Movie Database
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