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As the mother of a veteran film and television director, Florence Seidelman, 75, often pitched her daughter ideas, but it wasn't until she suggested a movie about the social lives of senior citizens that director Susan Seidelman was moved to act.
"A light bulb went off," Susan Seidelman says.
The idea for a film about seniors dating, romancing and rebounding from loss developed after a close friend of Florence's died, leaving the woman's husband grief-stricken for months.
After he joined a bereavement group for support, "we saw a dramatic change and a new vitality" that led to an active social life, Florence says. The experience also supplied him with stories about other seniors who re-entered the dating world.
Florence saw similar transformations at the "active-adult community" in Boynton Beach, Fla., where she and Michael, her husband of 56 years, live part of the year.
A film centered on older adults as vibrant, romantic, sexual people instead of simply as gray-haired grandparents -- or worse, "geriatric jokes" -- felt like "a story whose time has come," says Susan, 53, whose credits include Smithereens and Desperately Seeking Susan, as well as episodes of Sex and the City.
The film that came out of Florence's pitch three years ago, Boynton Beach Club, began its national rollout last weekend. It's a touching comedy that takes an optimistic look at getting older and moving on. It stars Dyan Cannon, Brenda Vaccaro, Joseph Bologna, Len Cariou, Michael Nouri, Renee Taylor and Sally Kellerman.
Florence Seidelman is a producer and shares story-writing credit with her daughter director.
Film writing was totally new territory for the retired educator and grandmother of six. She headed to a bookstore and bought a how-to manual. Six months later, she sent her daughter 130 pages.
"I really didn't think she was going to do it," says Susan Seidelman, who was busy on another project and admits to "stalling for time" when she urged her mother to try writing a script. The finished product was "rough," she says, but it had "good instincts, great characters and a great view into that world."
Susan also turned to her mother and asked whether she would be interested in being a producer.
"I said, 'Yes. What's a producer?'" Florence recalls.
With her writing partner, Shelly Gitlow, and help from her mother, Susan wrote a revised script that aimed to take a realistic yet positive view of aging. Without shying away from some of the sadder aspects of aging, such as the loneliness that comes with the loss of a loved one, "I wanted to present getting older as another chapter of life, different but just as rich," she says.
And very often with that new chapter of life, sex remains a force. "Romance, wanting to have human contact -- that doesn't go away with age," Susan says.
The film should resonate not only with 60- and 70-year-olds but also with 30-, 40- and 50-year-olds who might "learn something about their parents."
Susan certainly did. While she was staying with her parents in Florida and working on the film, her mother kindly asked whether she could make other arrangements for a few days. "I was putting a crimp in their romantic life," she says. "I went away for a weekend."
Now, as the film opens, Florence Seidelman savors her moviemaking experience and the joy of an unexpected adventure.
"Even at my age" she says, "you don't have to be stuck doing one thing."
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