Credible?


Sorry to bring this down to basics, but am I seriously expected to believe that a 35-year old guy with the looks and body of Daniel Craig would have sex with a 70-year old woman, regardless of how interesting, open, honest, etc she may be? I mean, one would expect there to be plenty of 20, 30, 40 and 50 year old attractive, fascinating, etc. women who would be keen to get to grips with Craig, yet he chooses someone twice his age. Can any of you men out there believe this?

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I see your point, Daniel Criag is attractive to everyone (I think he's really attractive) and I'm 24 and he's 40. Yet if I had a relationship with him ( which I wouldn't in reality because of the big age gap) it would be seen as fine by other people. Yet if he had a relationship with a woman who was more than 5 years older, she would be deemed an older woman.

People find it perfectly acceptable to see a woman in her late 30s/40s with a man 20-30 years older but if a woman is more than 10 years older she gets completely vilified, the reaction of her children mirror reality, they thought he was depraved and in the son's words 'even more of a *beep* up than I thought'- like he was a paedophile in reverse or into necrephilia. Yet if a 35 year old woman was having an affair with Toots the father, it would have been more acceptable. True, it wasn't comfortable to watch the sex scenes, but I as a young girl (very much into young men) don't want to see old men pawing women much younger either. Daniel Craig became even more attractive in this role to me...

Its amazing how people choose to ignore big age gaps when men are older, but make a joke out of older women with younger men. The worst thing is...its usually women who draw attention to the fact ( as seen in the terrible magazines which labelled Chris Martin a toyboy because Gwyneth Paltrow was 5 years older, nevermind that she is a million times better looking).

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My God Lt-Starbuck. I LOVED your post!

There is just so much hypocrisy with gender and you'd think that in these 'enlightened' times we'd have grown up and away from that. But sadly, no.

Women are too often the butt of the joke, it seems acceptable to laugh at them when they get to a certain age, or worse, ignore and dismiss them as being worthless now that they're no longer 'cute' or capable of spewing brats.

It broke my heart when May asked Darren if he saw 'a lump' when he looked at her, (good heavens, is that how we make older women feel?) and then again when she admitted to Darren that she thought no one would ever touch her again, save the undertaker.

We have to realise that we're all going to be where she is one day. All as 'invisible' and 'irrelevant' as this poor woman.

We need to stop glorifying youth and start celebrating the wisdom, knowledge and beauty that comes with age.



You fill me with inertia - George Spiggott

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@Lt Starbuck


You speak the truth---I clapped once when I read your post---it's sickening the way women are demonized in the media for even showing interest in younger men, let alone actually marry them. Look at how Jennifer Lopez recently got made fun of on these gossip shows (that bull**** TMZ, which I never watch, and Wendy Williams' show) for having a hot boyfriend 20 years her junior. I'm like, "Uh, she's a good actress/singer and a genuine star in her own right,plus she's still got a banging body and she looks great---of course she's gonna have young guys flocking to her---what's so damn weird about that?" Of course her ex-husband is celebrated for getting with a younger women---no big deal made about that. It's pretty ridiculous and sexist,too.

Hell, younger guys and older women kick it together in real life,too----now the older women who openly kick it with said younger men are called "cougars", which I think is a stupid name, but it's nice to see older women going out and getting theirs, instead of letting society dictate that they just crawl and vanish after age 40, or some such bull****.

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Surely if you watched the film to the very end you would have seen that he was just manipulating her.

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I'm afraid I got so irritated with the characters in the film that I couldn't watch more than half, but I suppose that makes it slightly - but only slightly - more credible.

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I'm surprised that the credibility question seems to be only about a young man turning toward a much older woman. To me the ability of a woman to take on a man she finds too callow for her daughter, and to completely destroy her remaining family relationships is incredible. That he's handsome & sexy and that she doesn't give a damn about her daughter, her son, etc. just isn't enough to be convincing. Not recommended for Valentine's Day.

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I get the feeling she doesnt give a damn about her son or daughter because they dont give a damn about her. She is just an inconvenience to them both. They are worried now that dad has died if they are going to be lumbered with her.

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totally agree - she has to make a life for herself now!

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"that she doesn't give a damn about her daughter, her son, etc. just isn't enough to be convincing" - but remember the bit in the writers' group, when she read out the piece she'd written? That gave huge insight in to what she was like as a mother, it sounded to me like she may have found motherhood and the sheer need of her children almost smothering and certainly depressing to say the least. I think she was a woman not at ease with the way her life was and not happy in it, and maybe yes, maybe she was one of those women who didn't fully bond with her children or who perhaps had longterm undiagnosed PND which could easily have badly affected her relationship with her kids. Hence her impulsive behaviour after losing her husband... I don't know, I'm just putting that out there!

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I think he felt more comfortable with the mother than he felt with anyone else. Sha was honest in what she expected and offered him a away out. She wasn't pressuring like the daughter was. She was accepting of his problems without being enablinh.

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If you saw the whole movie - he was after her money (and blatantly told her so at the end).

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I don't think it was that clear cut-- he seems to be enjoying the response he was giving her at first. And his outburst at the end seemed to communicate some affection for her-- if all he cared about was the money, he could have been a lot more brutal.

He liked her. Developed an affection for her. Decided to express that physically. No big deal. Some people don't feel the need to consult a style guide about these things.

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Where did you get the idea that she was 70? Her grandchildren would have been grown up by then.






"Joey, have you ever been in a Turkish prison?"

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Actually judging by her birthdate she was closer to 70 than 60 when she shot that scene. She looked amazing and I am utterly jealous of her upper arms.

Of course a man in his mid-30's would sleep with an older woman. Older women are very seductive, they have gained a sexuality not based on airbrushed perfection. There are women such as Charlotte Rampling and Catherine Deneuve who would only have to look in the direction of a young man for him to come running.

Anne Reid is a very beautiful woman too.

Older women seduce with their voice and their knowledge of men.

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.. and their knowledge of themselves.

So right about Anne Reid, Artisannes. I wasn't familiar with the actress by name, and when I saw the program description, I expected to see a 60 year old woman trying to look like she was 30. So refreshing to see the beauty that radiates from a woman who is comfortable in her very own, age appropriate skin. Inspiring, if I may say so. She is who I would like as a style role model long before a lot of doctored up 60 year old actresses I can think of.

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I'd say early to mid 60's

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I didn't find the situation credible, no, but equally because she was sharing him with her daughter.

Some commenters have made this a feminist issue -- "Why is it OK for a much older man, etc." -- but as a man I find great such age differences equally unbelievable and forced when the man is the older partner. Those 1950s films with Fred Astaire and much (much!) younger women now appear unseemly, even repugnant.

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