The Mismatched Couples Blogathon– Grumpy Old Men (1993) & Grumpier Old Men (1995)

Grumpy Old Men and its sequel, Grumpier Old Men, are more or less The Odd Couple 25 years later. Felix and Oscar are no longer roommates in New York City. They’re now neighbors living in the small midwestern town of Wabasha, Minnesota. Felix and Oscar are still alone, but are single and ready to mingle. The two men are polar opposites in every way, but are friends despite how incompatible they seem on the surface. They are the epitome of a “mismatched couple.”

Grumpy Old Men and Grumpier Old Men are more or less one film, as the second film continues the story a few months after the events in the first film. Grumpy Old Men spans winter and spring and Grumpier Old Men covers summer and autumn. My family always watches both these films on Thanksgiving after our annual viewing of Planes, Trains and Automobiles. Grumpy Old Men features Thanksgiving and Christmas, and we’ve found we can’t watch the first film without immediately watching the other. I have always accepted the events of both films taking place over a calendar year, despite the actual films being released two years apart. Both films are chock full of mismatched couples, covering a wide span of relationship types, from friendship to romance.

Jack Lemmon and Burgess Meredith as John and John Sr.

In the Grumpy Old Men series, Jack Lemmon plays John Gustafson, a widower and former teacher living alone in his beautiful Craftsman home in Wabasha. He survives off frozen meals and canned food and doesn’t seem thrilled about it. His daughter, Melanie (Darryl Hannah) and granddaughter come to visit often. His daughter’s relationship with her husband is on the rocks, and John isn’t upset to see it fall apart. John’s father, John Sr. (Burgess Meredith) is in his 90s and spends much of his time settling feuds between John and Max. John, Sr. is the polar opposite of his son. He eats unhealthily, smokes, and uses crass language. John’s biggest struggle in this film is that he owes a large sum of back taxes to the IRS and spends much of the film trying to dodge the collector.

Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau as John and Max.

Meanwhile, John’s neighbor and exact opposite Max Goldman (Walter Matthau), also a widower, spends his time in his messy home watching television, happily eating frozen and canned food, and terrorizing John by playing pranks on him. Even Max and John’s pets are contrasting. Max’s dog is a drooling, smelly, one-eyed bulldog named Lucky who is regularly encouraged to terrorize John’s cat named Slick. Max’s son, Jacob (Kevin Pollak) is running for mayor. He is also the opposite of Melanie, John’s daughter. Aside from the obvious male/female difference, Melanie is tall, Jacob is short. He also harbored a crush on Melanie as a child and sees his golden opportunity when her marriage falls apart.

Walter Matthau and Ann-Margret as Max and Ariel.

Tensions between John and Max heat up when a new neighbor, Ariel Truax (Ann-Margret) moves to town from California. She purchases a home catty corner from John and Max. Compared to the more conservative residents of Wabasha, Ariel is a breath of fresh air and a curiosity to the other residents in town, specifically the men. She purchases all kinds of exotic homeopathic medicines and remedies from the local pharmacy–so exotic in fact that they have to be mail-ordered. Ariel paints, sculpts, cooks exotic foods, and zips around town on her bobsled. She runs outside in her leotard to make snow angels and overall has a zest for life. She always wants to take chances and risks on anything that is a new experience. John and Max both seem resigned to letting things happen to them, versus making things happen for them. The men are both enchanted by Ariel, because duh it’s Ann-Margret, so she’s also gorgeous, and try to do their best to woo her. In the end, John wins and Max is upset and disappointed.

The tension over Ariel brings to light the root cause of John and Max’s feud–after high school, John married Max’s high school sweetheart. John tries to smooth over the situation by saying that his wife ended up cheating on him and was not a prize. He further reiterates to Max that he lucked out with the woman he eventually married. However, Max is still hurt that once again, John has ended up with the woman he was interested in. Despite being opposites, Ariel’s interest in John ends up being a boon to his life as her love for life leads him to try new things and helps pull him out of his rut of loneliness that he was experiencing throughout much of the beginning of the film.

Sophia Loren as Maria

However, Max might have lost out on Ariel, but he has a happy ending yet to come in Grumpier Old Men. His polar opposite, an Italian woman named Maria Sophia Coletta Ragetti (Sophia Loren), the cousin of local resident “Spaghetti Ragetti,” opens up a “ristorante” in Wabasha. Because it’s Sophia Loren, she is of course absolutely gorgeous and turns the heads of every man (and woman) in town. She’s also of course, European, which also makes her standout in this small midwestern town. Maria arrives during the summer in Wabasha and purchases the now vacant bait shop. The bait shop’s proprietor, Chuck (Ossie Davis) had passed away during the winter, in Grumpy Old Men. Both John and Max are upset that their beloved bait shop is being converted into a restaurant. Presumably they are upset as this forces them to accept that their friend Chuck is really gone.

John and Max do their best to ruin Maria’s restaurant. They switch out her red paint with yellow while she’s repainting, they change around signage to divert drivers away from the restaurant, everything they can to ruin it. Their efforts almost succeed when Maria has no customers on her opening night; however, when Ariel hears about what they’ve done she forces them to apologize. As one can imagine, this behavior does not present Max in the most appealing light, but he eventually charms Maria into going out on a date with him. Here is this man, definitely not conventionally attractive, with this gorgeous sophisticated Italian woman. Max buys her cheap jewelry (unaware how cheap it really is), tries to cook dinner for her but ends up with peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, and really puts forth an effort. They keep up an antagonistic front, with Maria calling Max an “ox” and him calling her a “nag.” In the end they fall in love and their name-calling transforms into “ox” and “nag” being pet names for one another.

Despite all the differences between the various couples (friendship, family and romantic) described within this article, the core commonality they all have is love. John loves his father, John Sr. Max and John love each other despite their feud. When John has a heart attack and is hospitalized on Christmas Eve, Max is at the hospital to see him. When the nurse asks him if he’s a friend or family, Max hesitates and then says poignantly, “friend.” Ariel is at John’s beside pleading with him to stay with her. John and Max love their respective kids and each other’s kids. Melanie and Jacob eventually fall in love and elope. John and Max love their respective spouses, Ariel and Maria, despite the rocky starts both couples had. Even John Sr. finds love when he starts wooing Maria’s mother, “Mama,” (Ann Morgan Guilbert) a very conservative traditional Italian woman. At first she’s put off by John Sr.’s crass pick-up lines and innuendo, but eventually finds him charming. At the end of the Grumpy Old Men films, love triumphs over anything else.

JOHN: Moron!
MAX: Putz!