Old Guys In Bed

Many people get creeped out by the degree to which Western society fetishises attraction to youth, but it does have one distinct advantage: the older one gets, the more younger people there are around to admire. Being attracted to older people has the opposite effect. In his late fifties, film historian Paul (Duff MacDonald) is finding it increasingly difficult to find older strangers who are up for brief flings or one night stands. His best friend and self-proclaimed life coach Doug (Domenic Di Rosa) keeps urging him to give love a try, but he likes his neatly compartmentalised life and thinks he’s past the point where he wants that sort of thing.

Then he meets Bill (Paul James Saunders), a 70-year-old Hungarian immigrant who lives halfway across the country, and everything changes.

The course of true love never does run smooth, and all that, and that’s really the point in a modern romcom which is at least as interested in observation as it is in prompting emotion. Supported by his niece Caitlin (Joan Hart), who provides an unyielding love even when he’s at his most defensively obnoxious, Paul undertakes a tour of the practices of modern dating which will be quite an eye-opener for anyone who has been out of the loop. Caitlin, meanwhile, is dating blue-haired student Joe (Al Hamameh), whose attempts to impress intellectually fall a little short. Differences in their perception of present day norms complicate their romance, and thereby any sense that changes in the approach to problems represent real solutions, but it’s Paul who will have storms to weather in a relationship complicated by distance, phone etiquette and the weight of the past.

At a point in life where the past seems more substantial than the future, Paul has been quietly worrying about what he might amount to.. He has always hoped to achieve something meaningful – by which he means to produce an acclaimed analysis of the work of somebody else. It’s a lonely place to be, and that’s okay when he has plenty of distractions; precarious otherwise. We get to know him, even before Bill enters the picture, through his late night conversations with the various paramours to whom he obliquely turns for advice. The film is sexually explicit – mostly verbally – but not gratuitous, and though sex leads the way in many cases, there is always some other kind of connection, even when it’s acknowledged as temporary. Paul is comfortable with many different kinds of people – practically everyone except for unfortunate bar staff, and himself.

That sense of the temporary nature of things is everywhere. Paul and Bill’s first major falling out begins with the discovery that they have different favourite seasons. Bill lives in a home that is not his own; he merely looks after it for rich people. He cares for his ailing father, but we know it won’t be long until he’s ready to send him away. University terms end and begin again. Paul is mindful of the uncertainty of contract renewal. Bill is so afraid of endings that he might not know where to begin.

All the characters are loveable in their different ways, but there is a melancholy tone to the whole, brightening only at the end with one of those shifts in perspective that love makes possible. Screened as part of the 2025 Fantasia International Film Festival, Old Guys In Bed finds sweetness in the acknowledgement and acceptance of failings, finds warmth in a renewed appreciation of life.

Reviewed on: 09 Aug 2025