GLORIA BY NAME, INGLORIOUS BY NATURE

The good news is that the film industry appears to be waking up to the dramatic shift in the demographics throughout the 'western' world: more older folks, fewer younger people.
The bad news is that it has resulted in the funding and making of a multitude of mediocre movies, like the truly dreadful 'Marigold Hotel' where flashes of outstanding acting cannot disguise the absence of a decent script.
'Gloria' is a new 'award-winning' feature film from Chile, which is big on realism but low on entertainment. It features a 50-something divorcee seeking love and happiness in ghastly singles bars in Santiago. The result is a depressing insight into the horrors of ageing, where loss of youth and youthful dreams are replaced by dancing, drinking, gambling and aversion-therapy sex, The bespectacled actress, who plays Gloria, is more than competent. She bares all for her art - but I for one wish she hadn't. Likewise her weak, old, co-dependent lover who has had stomach surgery to go from gross obesity to flabby normality, displays never less than a competent performance in response to the dire part the script has given him. There are a few genuine laughs, very few, and many honest insights into the emotional baggage, unrealistic expectations and endless compromises that inevitably manifest in later life. 'Un homme et une femme' it isn't. 'Brief encounter' in the buff, with explicit sub-titles - that's more like it. The young won't want to watch it but old people learning Spanish might benefit.