ROSIE REVIEWS Hope Springs. (AKA 'Surprise! Old people can be in romantic comedies too.')

Rosie Waterland’s hilarious take on Hope Springs.

Meryl Streep is 65. Tommy Lee Jones is 68. Both are Oscar winners (Queen Streep several times over).

Both have had illustrious careers in Hollywood and continue to impress on the big screen to this day.

Oh, and both of them were used to successfully prove that not all films need to have an explosion/car chase/30-year-age-gap between romantic leads to be successful.

Hope Springs, the 2012 romantic comedy, made $115 million at the box office. With a budget of just $30 million, that sure says a lot about how much audiences are craving this kind of real and heartwarming take on love, marriage and relationships.

There should be more films like it, and there should be studios willing to accept that stories between older (and appropriately age-matched) couples aren’t just a once-every-ten-years gimmick. I certainly had a lot more fun watching this than I did watching, say, Magic in the Moonlight, which tried to convince me that it was romantic and whimsical to see 54-year-old Colin Firth romance 26-year-old Emma Stone.

Hope Springs feels real, and that is so refreshing (and again – clearly profitable) in today’s flood of rom-com nonsense (although I do love a crappy rom-com and nobody can ever take that away from me. #NOTTINGHILL4EVA).

Where were we? Ah, yes, the delightful, romantic and surprisingly hilarious Hope Springs.

We open with married couple Meryl and Tommy. They’ve been together for like 30 years, their kids have left home and they sleep in different rooms. They haven’t had sex in yonks, which is getting a bit frustrating for Mez, cos she’s horny AS. She tries slipping into sexy knickers and creeping into Tommy’s bedroom at night, but he just doesn’t seem interested. He’s all: “Why can’t I just watch sports on TV and eat the lovely dinners you slave over without saying thank you cliché cliché unhappy marriage etc cliché).

At this point, Meryl could leave and do the female-driven version of Magic in the Moonlight, in which she romances Ryan Gosling and everybody on earth dies from being hit with the weight of too much perfection. But, she’s playing the disgruntled wife, and Meryl always plays her roles to perfection. She gets on that odd doober-whacky called the ‘internet’ and books herself and hubby into a week-long retreat to try and spice up their marriage.

Now, because this movie is brilliant in every way, the retreat is run by Steve Carrell, who forces the couple to confront each other about their intimacy (ie the delicate term for ‘sexy-time’) problems. Of course Tommy is all “No, I hate this, I’m a conservative man and I won’t talk about personal things like sexy-times,” but Steve Carrell is all, “What’s your deal, man? Your wife is sexy and you’re not appreciating her. You need to try and find the ‘spark’ again.”

Cue many hilarious scenarios in which said older couple try to rekindle the ‘spark’ with many awkward sexual encounters. It sounds cringe-worthy, but the film handles it so beautifully that it never falls into slapstick territory; this is a couple who love each other, and really are trying to reawaken the lost passion in their relationship.

After graduating therapy week without having yet done the deed, they head home, and Tommy goes straight to his own room that night. Meryl does lots of brilliant Meryl Streep-level acting so that we know she has finally given up. In the morning, she is going to leave Tommy and go and find a Ryan Gosling toy-boy who actually appreciates and wants to have sex with her.

But then! Quelle surprise! Just to give things one last shot, Meryl sneaks into Tommy’s bedroom and…

AINT NO SPOILERS HERE – YOU’VE GOT TO WATCH THE MOVIE, FRIENDS.

I will say this though: Just like the rest of the film, the ending is REAL. It feels real. Romantic leads can be in their sixties, they can be the same age and their stories are entertaining.

The gigantic pile of money this film made proves that.

Have you watched the film? What were your thoughts?

Take a look at some more Meryl Streep movies….

Want more? How about:

Rosie Reviews: Fifty Shades of Grey

Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter. AKA let’s confuse Rosie about American history.

Rosie reviews Black Swan. Or, “The Girl Who Goes Crazy From Hunger”.