The Leisure Seeker

In Italian director Paolo Virzi's first English-language film, Helen Mirren and Donald Sutherland star as Ella and John Spencer, an elderly retired couple who escape in their 1975 Winnebago Indian RV, which Ella has dubbed "The Leisure Seeker."

But this time they're not looking to find relaxation. They secretly leave their Wellesley, Massachusetts, home where dad had been a beloved English teacher, much to consternation of their adult children, an unhappily married professor daughter and a closeted son.

South Carolina native mom, popping pills and enabling her confused husband, wants to get him down through their old Eastern Seaboard vacation spots to Key West to see his hero Ernest Hemmingway's home before he lapses into complete dementia.

The screenplay is based on Michael Zadoorian's 2009 comedic romance novel, and is co-written by Virzi, Stephen Amidon, Francesca Archibugi and Francesco Piccolo, but the film is not funny. It's predictable, and, aside from the stellar leads, poorly acted and paced. The dialogue and action is repetitive; at each campsite, Ella projects a slide show for John to see if he remembers the names of his children and family friends. When he has a glimmer of recognition, she observes that, "it's so nice when you forget to be forgetful."

John isn't quite sundowning as always unpredictable, morning and night, focusing on hamburgers and on-the-nose sixties music while he grapples with incontinence and the growing frustration of a mind slipping away, his faculties escaping along with the campers.

Ella treasures his fading moments of lucidity, she's "so happy when you come back to me," but it's not enough to string together a sad reflection of aging Americans.

If Neil Young were in this soundtrack, he would advise, "It's better to burn out than it is to rust."

The Leisure Seeker opens March 9th in selected cities: http://sonyclassics.com/theleisureseeker/