Helen Mirren was too young to play this role! She wasn't dressed down to look old and dowdy as much as she was in say, The Queen. But nobody cares when an older woman is too young to play a certain role.
shareWorthless comment.
If you look at a current photo of Mirren you will see she is a very young looking 70, so her "look" in this movie as a spry 80-something was a very realistic look. Maybe you don't know what a healthy and active 80-yr-old looks like?
..*.. TxMike ..*..
Make a choice, to take a chance, to make a difference.
I agree with TxMike. It's called acting. You can't expect to find many 85 year-old actresses willing to take on such a demanding role and have insurance in case of health issues. Judi Dench and Maggie Smith are 80 and would have been feisty, but maybe were not available or right for the role. Maria was still working at 85 so she wasn't too frail.
shareI agree 100% with the OP. I watched this movie last night and woke up this morning thinking "Why in the world was no attempt made to age Helen Mirren for this role?" Especially when there was so much talk in the documentary this was based on about Maria being in her 80s in 1998 when the story took place. Mirren played this role (and as always, did a damn fine job!) as her own age (69 at the time) and I found it distracting, to say the least, to watch her strutting around Austria in 6" spike heels! I would love to know why the director made this decision.
shareThe person she was portraying was old but certainly not "dowdy". My grandmother just died at 104. Up until about 6mos. before she died, she lived alone, did her own shopping, paid her own bills, and socialized with both family and friends. She didn't even have completely grey hair.
Helen Mirren is a beautiful and attractive woman even at 70. The makeup used for the movie was very realistic and made her look older than she actually is but not dowdy because the real Maria Altmann wasn't.
It was ridiculous seeing Mirren looking fresh as a daisy and talking about the Austrians expecting her to die any day.
Daniel Bruhl was also too young for his role, here is a guy in 1999 looking like 30-35 talking about his father having been a dedicated Nazi. The real Czernin was 43 in 99 and definitely looked it.
I agree with most of your comments. All that the original poster has to do is look at a current photo of Helen Mirren - in fact there is one on this page if you scroll down. Compare that to her movie character and you can clearly see about a 10-15 years age increase.
shareI agree with you and the OP, she did seem too young for the part, particularly when in the scene where the heirs of various families give speeches on the thefts of their families treasures; Helen is supposed to be their contemporary and yet she looks a decade or more younger than them.
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