Elsa & Fred

Opens Fri., Dec. 19 at Sundance Cinemas. Rated PG-13. 97 minutes.

Fifty years ago Shirley MacLaine was doing adorable-pixie roles in movies like Irma La Douce and What a Way to Go! and Christopher Plummer was, well, the Captain in The Sound of Music. Both actors are doing just about the same thing in Elsa & Fred. She’s still an unstoppable force of life, and he’s still moping around the house. MacLaine doesn’t break into a chorus of “My Favorite Things” to shake him out of his doldrums, but she does insist that they re-create the fountain-jumping scene from La Dolce Vita. Which is not a bad way for an old curmudgeon to get his mojo back, it turns out.

The film is based on a 2005 picture from Argentina of the same title. MacLaine plays Elsa, who takes on the challenge of waking up her new neighbor Fred (Plummer) to the pleasures of life. Fred, recently widowed, has been dumped in his apartment by his needy daughter (Marcia Gay Harden) and her overbearing husband (Chris Noth). Fred would prefer to be left alone, but that isn’t going to happen with Elsa kicking his butt. The movie doesn’t have many surprises in store, but director Michael Radford (Il Postino) adds a few dashes of vinegar around the general feel-good mood. The cast is pretty strong for the low-budget trappings, with George Segal dropping by as Fred’s old pal, James Brolin as a man from Elsa’s past, and the underused Erika Alexander as Fred’s caretaker. You might recognize the kid who plays Fred’s grandson as Jared Gilman, the boy from Moonrise Kingdom. Like other threads in the script, the grandson gets set up without much of a payoff.

The running theme about La Dolce Vita—the Fellini classic is Elsa’s favorite movie, and you know she’s going to wade into the Trevi Fountain before the fade-out—is pretty cute, but in general you keep wishing Elsa & Fred would shake itself out of the sitcom approach. Of course the main draw here is the two leads, and they play the whole thing with a great deal of zest. MacLaine is relentless and doesn’t miss a beat, and Plummer (who turned 85 last week) continues his elegant run of silver-fox roles. In the end, neither is given enough meat to chew on, which leaves us with a choice: cherish the chance to see two old pros stretching it out, or lament the fact that they don’t have better material. If you’re a fan, the glass is half full.

film@seattleweekly.com