Harold is a bored, self-indulgent, spoiled brat who treats everyone like an inferior. With too much time on his hands, he's also obsessed with death. He finds, Maude, an elderly hippie with her own version of life and death and spirituality. Together they enjoy each other's company and end up having sex. Harold horrifies everyone by telling them he's going to marry Maude. The film makes everyone except for Harold and Maude look like complete idiots or worse. It insults religious faith and the military and society in general.
Of course, after all of Maude's exaltations of the wonder of life, she takes enough pills to commit suicide. Why? We are never told but it clearly conflicts with Maude's joy of life teachings. Anyway, Maude dies and Harold is so depressed about losing Maude, that he drives his car off a cliff, jumping out in time to dance and play a banjo on the cliff-side. Thus, celebrating life.
No doubt, this film is unique, yet the writer and director have a warped sense of life itself and as such are incapable of truly teaching the joy's of life. They attack religious faith and miss out how faith makes life all the more joyful. They attack the tradition of military defense against those that hate freedom and liberty. The very basis of our ability to enjoy life is achieved by those that have given up their lives so that others, like Harold and Maude, can squander it by belching their idiotic drivel.
Harold takes from society but gives nothing back. His family is wealthy and he chooses not to work but instead to spend all his time indulging in his morbid fantasies. Maybe if he got a job and became an active participant in society he wouldn't find his life so empty. He's a pathetic moron and Maude is little more than a senile lunatic that should have been committed.
This film misses the point by a long shot since the film-makers themselves have demonstrated that they couldn't possibly imagine what the real joys of life include.
Of course, after all of Maude's exaltations of the wonder of life, she takes enough pills to commit suicide. Why? We are never told but it clearly conflicts with Maude's joy of life teachings. Anyway, Maude dies and Harold is so depressed about losing Maude, that he drives his car off a cliff, jumping out in time to dance and play a banjo on the cliff-side. Thus, celebrating life.
No doubt, this film is unique, yet the writer and director have a warped sense of life itself and as such are incapable of truly teaching the joy's of life. They attack religious faith and miss out how faith makes life all the more joyful. They attack the tradition of military defense against those that hate freedom and liberty. The very basis of our ability to enjoy life is achieved by those that have given up their lives so that others, like Harold and Maude, can squander it by belching their idiotic drivel.
Harold takes from society but gives nothing back. His family is wealthy and he chooses not to work but instead to spend all his time indulging in his morbid fantasies. Maybe if he got a job and became an active participant in society he wouldn't find his life so empty. He's a pathetic moron and Maude is little more than a senile lunatic that should have been committed.
This film misses the point by a long shot since the film-makers themselves have demonstrated that they couldn't possibly imagine what the real joys of life include.