TELL ME A RIDDLE

US, 1980, 105 minutes, Colour.
Melvyn Douglas, Brooke Adams, Lila Kedrova, Zalman King.
Directed by Lee Grant.

Tell Me A Riddle was directed by actress Lee Grant. It is a serious film, a focus on an ageing couple played expertly by Lila Kedrova and Melvyn Douglas. Refugees from Russia, they have made their home in America and brought up their family. As they grow old and weaker, they seem to move apart, each in their own world. Their families try to cope. The film traces the last months of the life of the wife, the selling of the house,the visiting of relatives, the gradual re-awakening of love, memories and disappointments and death. Brooke Adams gives fine support as a granddaughter living in California.

An excellent film portraying themes of old age.

1. An interesting serious film? Relationships? Age? Memories, illness, death?

2. The sensitivity of Lee Grant in directing the film, working with the stars? The quality of the stars' presence and their performances, their rapport with each other? Their credibility?

3. The film as a piece of Americana: the action spanning the?East, the Midwest and the West? The origins of the couple, Europe and the migration to America, making America their home and becoming American? A 20th. century picture?

4. The significance of the past, Eva's memories: joy, falling in love, relationships, Russia, the pogroms, prisons, executions? Their being inserted throughout the film? The monochrome tone of the flashbacks? Their being patterned on Eva's behaviour in the present? The contrasts between past and present? The musical score and themes of the past and their place in Eva's memory?

5. David and Eva: their age, pottering around their house, painting, clCaning and cooking? A wandering life? Not communicating? Irritating each other? The domestic details of their life at home? Watching television, painting, ladders, kitchen? The question of selling the house?

6. The focus of the film on Eva: her age, illness, revealing her vigorous past, her love for her family, the reunion and the dinner, her cooking, her sadness, hiding, her gradually coming alive? Her relationship with David, wanting to stay in her home? Knowing that he had friends? His desire to sell the house and go to a home?

7. The glimpse of the family at the meal, their relationships, friendliness, concern for their parents, the selling of the home?.

8. The decision to travel: the flight, the meeting of the various members of the family, the Midwest, Eva and David as grandparents, with the children, the differences, the generation gaps, the loneliness? The telling of the riddles with the grandchildren ? and the title of the film?

9. Moving on to California, meeting Jeannie, her apartment, her relationship with Matthew? Her work as a social worker? Her style? The couple in California, amazed at the lifestyle and appearances? Wandering, discovering the sea? Their room, memories? Illness? Eva in the shop seeing her old friend, goingito her apartment and contrasting it with their own, the importance of friendship and talking? Support in illness?

10. The growing bond between David and Eva, yet Eva's decline and wanting to go home, discovering the truth about the selling of the house? her withdrawal? Her decision to go to the party, the memories of Russia? Fever, death?

11. David trying to tend his wife, the truth about the house, his having to admit it, his weeping? Her fever, illness and death?

12. The meaning of life, memories, age? Eva and Jeannie and their talks together, sharing a feminine perspective on life and relationships? Eva and her books in her memory? Her living in her mind?

13. The portrait of Jeannie, her work, style, relationship with Matthew, his film?making? Their clashes, breaking off? Jeannie and her reliance on her grandmother?

14. The title, telling riddles with the grandson and the riddles of life?

15. Insight into American life in the 20th. century, migrants and their adaptation to their new country, founding families, the relationships between men and women, mutual sensitivity and hurt, ageing and death?