Elsa & Fred Movie - A Delightful Romantic Comedy

Elsa & Fred is a romantic dramedy about a couple in their golden years who meet and develop a beautiful relationship purely by accident. Their chance encounter becomes the centerpiece for a series of delightful events that bring them closer to each other.

Alfredo (Fred) is a recent widower who has led a quiet and repressed life and retires to an apartment in Madrid.

A man plagued with illnesses and taking all kinds of pills for ills he really doesn't know if he has, whose life is turned upside down by his neighbor, the quirky and very funny Elsa, an Argentine living in Madrid right down the hall from Alfredo.

The dubious Elsa throws herself and Fred into situations the widower would have disapproved of earlier in life.

She bursts into his life like a whirlwind, determined to teach him that the time he has left to live is precious and that he should enjoy it as he pleases.

Elsa seduces Fred with her reckless behavior and view of life and they have a romance. As they fall in love, the two become absorbed with helping out each other.

When Alfredo finds out the illness of Elsa, he decides to grant her lifelong wish: go to Rome to see the Fontana di Trevi.

The movie was filmed between February 22 and April 12 of 2005, and had to be finished before planned due to the restrictions imposed after Pope John Paul II's death.

An Argentine-Spanish coproduction.

The cost of the production was 2 million euros.

Location scenes filmed in Madrid and Rome.

The simple and beautiful story is supported by magnificent performances of Manuel Alexandre and China Zorrilla. How refreshing to see two actors in their 80s give outstanding performances with so many nuances: fear, depression, laughter.

The two seem very natural in their roles, and that heightens the dramatic impact of this endearing story.

Elsa y Fred is the third movie directed by the Argentinean director Marcos Carnevale.

His objective with this movie was to "rescue the idea of love at any age, in a pure way and without falling in the old age stereotypes".

With this film Carnevale also wants to give an homage to Federico Fellini, a director he admires and has had contact by letter.

The Uruguayan actress China Zorrilla said about her role:

It's a history so well written by Marcos (Carnevale), if it was not this way, Elsa would be an annoying old woman, but she has grace. And she resembles me a lot, for example in the sense of humor.

Manuel Alexandre also gave his vision on the movie:

The whole movie has degrees of emotion and irony. With China it has been simple to achieve it, just by looking at ourselves we were already in situation, it was for laugh, it was for cry.

If after seeing this movie on big screen you want to enjoy it again or you want to see it for the first time in the confort of your home, Elsa and Fred is available on DVD now.

It is a great story about life and deserves to be seen with the family.

Format: Color, Dolby, 

        DVD-Video, NTSC, 

        Widescreen

Region: Region 1

        (U.S. and Canada only)

Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1

Format: Import, PAL, 

        Subtitled, Widescreen

Region: Region 2 

        (Japan, Europe, 

         South Africa, and the 

         Middle East, 

         including Egypt)

Subtitles: English, Spanish.

What a little gem of a movie. Anyone bored with conventional love stories with young, beautiful people, should see this film.

Elsa and Fred is a sensitive romance in the third age, proving that it is never too late to love.