YOUNGER AND YOUNGER

Jonathan Younger (Donald Sutherland) is the owner of a department store where people can deposit things or just lock themselves away in a room. This idealistic dreamer, who behaves like an exiled European aristocrat, is a master of illusions and of seducing women. But it is his neglected wife Penny (Lolita Davidovich) who diligently runs everything. One day, when Jonathan is making love to a customer on the keyboard of a Wurlitzer organ, Penny, who could observe it all from a surveillance camera, has a heart attack on the spot at the sight of this carnal mischief. Son Winston (Brandon Fraser), returning from his studies in England, soon realises that Dad is in no position to run the business. Moreover, Jonathan starts having visions of his wife. Everywhere he hears her voice, and every time he sees her, she seems to have gotten younger and younger.

Los Angeles is the setting for Percy Adlon’s latest film, a delightfully funny and absurd erotic fantasy. This new exploration of the special universe of the creator of Bagdad Café and Rosalie Goes Shopping was a real family affair. He wrote the script with his son, and it was his wife who produced everything. As always, it is, according to him, about “how wonderful women really are, and how stupid men (sic) are.” In any case, he has assembled a splendid cast for it. Donald Sutherland (The Dirty Dozen, M.A.S.H., Novecento) plays the great child Jonathan Younger with great pleasure. The delightful Julie Delpy (“Europa, Europa,” “Mauvais Sang,” “Voyager”) is Melodie, his son’s girlfriend, played by Brandon Fraser. Lolita Davidovich (Blaze) is getting younger as Penny and Sally Kellerman (M.A.S.H., Brewster McCloud, That’s Life) is Melody’s mother.