Directed by Lisa Steen and written by Anna Greenfield, Late Bloomers is the type of film that’ll sadly fly under the radar, go years and years without gaining proper traction, and that stings for many reasons. It’s an honest, heartfelt exploration of existential dread, filled with beautiful performances from Karen Gillan and Małgorzata Zajączkowska (Margaret Sophie Stein).
The story follows Louise (Gillan), still reeling after a tough breakup, shocked by her mother’s Alzheimer’s diagnosis, and exhausted from trying to make it as a musician. On top of all this, she breaks her hip in a drunken freak accident, and at the hospital, she meets an older woman named Antonina (Zajączkowska), who only speaks Polish. The dynamic between Louise and Antonina starts hilariously, but soon, it develops into a gorgeous friendship that explores what it’s like to see people as they truly are.
If there’s one theme Late Bloomers explores in a breathtaking manner, it’s how invisibility could shatter and perpetually change a person. No one wants to be ignored, but they also don’t want people to pity them, and they don’t want to be babied either. Still, there comes a point where understanding that vulnerability is necessary in all stages of life because people also deserve to have someone care for them. Thus, despite the language barrier between Louise and Antonina, it’s clear that the attachment they form is based on an earnest understanding that explores looking inward to shed some of their own aches to see someone else’s pain.
With this, the film extends what Louise learns through her time with Antonina to her changed dynamic with her mother, bringing to our screens one of the most heartfelt scenes that showcases forgiveness, love, and warmth simultaneously. The exploration of life’s challenges doesn’t slap us in the face in Late Bloomers, but instead, it works through it with an intricately grounded character growth that Karen Gillan is especially great at mastering. It’s through quiet moments where the deep longing to succeed and one’s age starts to hit us hard and fast because it’s in those beats that the film feels deeply relatable.
It’s fascinating to think, for instance, that I’m watching a movie like this while a bit older than Louise’s character and still questioning what on earth I’m doing with my job in an industry that’s mostly bleak. I thankfully have the luxury of being home, but I wonder what would’ve happened if I was living elsewhere because there’s something so poignantly raw about the moment she goes home that I wonder if it would’ve inspired me to do the same.
Late Bloomers doesn’t ask its audience to do much work. Frankly, it keeps us on the outside during some scenes because if we don’t understand Polish, the subtitles don’t always tell us what’s being said. This way, we’re taking it day by day just like Louise, and something about that feels more evocative than if we had all the information. Simultaneously, the film balances show and tell with such clever means of storytelling that in one scene, when Antonina’s character dances gleefully at a bar, I fully lost it and proceeded to drown in my own tears. So, while Late Bloomers isn’t unique per se, it’s a stunning exploration of the detail that it isn’t too late to simply try. To dance if that’s what you want, to make new connections, try again and again and again.
It’s a fascinating look into at how women can confide in each other in ways that require sincere vulnerability to dig into the parts of their souls that are hard to express aloud near men. Both men and women surround Louise throughout her arc, yet there’s a magnificence that comes alive when she begins evolving with women of all ages whose experiences enable her to cope and understand the cards life has dealt. Narratives surrounding late bloomers are often explored with younger audiences or in period pieces, but the nuance provided in this film allows viewers to understand that the term is so much more complex than we know. There’s so much at play with how women deal with things and how others can shape us; thus, in telling a vulnerable story from Louise’s point of view, we get an intimate understanding of human relationships that’s beautiful to witness.
Late Bloomers is now available for digital rent or purchase.
First Featured Image | Official Poster Credit: ©Vertical