Golden Years

Within the empty rooms of his mind, a man wrestles with memories of happier times, as his wife and younger self push through from the past to light up the dark spaces of the present.

Jonah (Dexter) is having trouble remembering. He’s old and lives alone, and hasn’t very much around him in terms of personal effects to keep him familiar with and full of the past. His walls are mostly bare, there’s no family photographs anywhere, and Jonah lives a typical male life of simplicity and economy, without clutter or memorabilia. What Jonah does have though, is music, and the remembrance of his wife through the tune that they would dance to when they were young and in love.

Putting the record on switches some kind of light on in Jonah, too, and memories keep coming back to him about the time he spent with his wife, Alma (Sargent), in the house that seems so dark and grey to him now. As he moves through the rooms he keeps finding different snippets of their past together, remembering how she was, the conversations they had, and the loving times they had spent. He’s there, too, younger (Athinou) and so sure of himself, not realising what he had when it was all right in front of him. And then it is all gone again.

These memories seem to be a blessing and a curse for Jonah, as they call back to something that he couldn’t hold onto. His life now is so empty, drab, and dreary, compared to what he had then, and it is a real wrench for Jonah to keep going through reminiscences that he’s not sure are always going to be there, with his memory failing and his age catching up to him. Much like Anthony Hopkins in The Father (2020) he’s not always so sure now what is real, what is remembered, and what is a false memory.

Told with real care and attention by director and co-writer, George Carter, Golden Years invites us into Jonah’s ever decreasing world to witness the end of a story. Even in the quick ten minutes we have with him, we know Jonah, and feel with him, and understand him, as he wrestles with the images that hold so much for him. The small, single location of the house never feels restrictive, and in the hands of Carter, each new room holds a different surprise and another piece of the jigsaw, as Jonah desperately tries to fit the pieces of his life back together.

With Jono Tarrant’s cinematography capturing the essence of light and dark in Jonah’s life, keeping the memories warm and cosy, and the present cold and grey, along with Elliot Iddon’s accompanying music, which fits neatly and seamlessly into the narrative, Golden Years builds a feeling and an atmosphere around Jonah that fully encapsulates his life on screen. The way the characters interact, sharing the same space but perhaps not the same time, is elegantly handled as Carter shows us the story from all angles, deciding who to put in the frame, whose emotion to capture, and showing us who is looking at who, as they all move around each other in a dance.

For what is a student film on a small budget, Carter manages to build his vision through the team around him, who all pull together to bring their expertise to bear. Each element works well on screen and fits together to build the narrative that Carter is looking for, allowing us into Jonah’s story in an effective and familiar way. While the themes and scenario are fairly universal, it is how the story is told that really beings the viewer into the experience of what Jonah is going through, and with that Carter has led with his vision to create something that speaks to the audience clearly and emotionally, even if you think you can half remember seeing something similar somewhere before.