The Age of Love

At the outset of The Age of Love, an elderly man shows videographer Steven Loring a snapshot of his wife and himself taken at night: “We were right in the woods and it was great. We could sit in the creek with a case of beer in the water. You love each other and you have a good time, no matter what you do—whether it’s drinking or walking or sitting at the fire at night. If I keep talking and thinking about my life, I’m going to start crying.” Another man shares a much older photo. Young and smiling, he and his wife are posing inside the Roman Coliseum. He comments: “I only took her out once and I said, ‘I’m not going to let her get away’. The way she talked, the way she walked, the way she moved. That’s my love. It was and always will be.” This photo of the Coliseum resonated with me personally. My wife and I have a similar, more recent photo of ourselves taken inside the famous Roman ruin. I mention this similarity because it relates to a major “take away” of this film: When we pose as couples for these photos, do we truly appreciate the moment at hand? How many of us imagine that in the distant future we will revisit that image again and again as lone survivors, drawing upon the painful blessing it provides. Further, how many of us have the prescience to imagine what life holds for us at that point and what life will require of us or offer to us after this love? Loring’s The Age of Love focuses on 10 (among 30) individuals who visit these questions in their later years. All are between 70 to 90 years of age, a requirement of a speeddating event hosted by the “healthy aging” coalition in Rochester, NY. Fifteen older men and fifteen older women meet in round-robin interviews that each last 5 minutes. Following these brief conversations with members of the opposite sex, each participant vote “yes” or “no” on a