The adults in this movie looked WAY older than they were!
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emuri99198 — 10 years ago(May 13, 2015 05:19 PM)
You're half-right with where you're going. Dianne Weist (Helen) was about 40, while Tom Hulce (Larry) was 35. Also, Rick Moranis (Nathan) was born in the same year as Tom, but I always thought that Rick looked noticably youthful for his age. He looked like a 26-year-old (looking past the tiny laugh lines) until he went on hiatus and started aging closer to a normal pace.
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EightiesKid — 10 years ago(May 18, 2015 05:43 AM)
^ Rick did seem way younger (like a nerd/hipster before his time!) in his other movies. I wonder if it's just because Nathan was so uptight that it made it hard to buy his character still being in his 20s.
Katrina: good point, lol. 80s fashions even made teens like Elizabeth Shue with her coat in Adventures in Babysitting look (comparatively) old. -
dabukaba — 9 years ago(August 14, 2016 04:37 AM)
I agree that the adults looked older than their characters with the exception of Susan's character (Nathan's wife), played by Harley Jane Kozak when she was 32. However, I disagree with the posts that say it involves their fashions; it really strikes me how far ahead of its time this movie is in every way for 1989, to the point that it's completely modern and relevant now in 2016, and this includes the characters' fashions observe them all the way through next time you watch this movie and you'll see that literally none of their clothes or hair looks '80's. I did a Google Images search of some random screenshots from the movie to show some random examples:
https://i.ytimg.com/vi/ZWgvrTEQGvM/maxresdefault.jpg
https://storage.googleapis.com/vidsums/fdc14081-33e2-4e02-913d-b7c0c87a29d8_thumb.jpg
http://images-cdn.moviepilot.com/images/c_scale,h_298,w_626/t_mp_quality/screen-shot-2015-02-06-at-4-03-52-pm-whatever-happened-to-rick-moranis-honey-i-love-my-kids-png-251813/whatever-happened-to-rick-moranis-honey-i-love-my-kids-251813.jpg
http://media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lvrlojh0SP1qzzh6g.jpg
https://i.ytimg.com/vi/xe6IM4D77oE/maxresdefault.jpg
[By the way, I'm young enough to not remember 1989 but old enough to vividly remember 1994 and know that even 1994 didn't look or feel like this movie or now (2016), although in my opinion there was a really big cultural shift in the second half of the '90's, yet this movie seems even much ahead of that, so remarkably ahead of 1989. It reflects and gives acute insight into current American issues, culture, and society down to the smallest detail.]
Back to the thread topic, I feel like there are a lot of contributing factors to people aging differently from others, be it genes, lifestyle, mental health, physical health, etc. I've known people in my family included who others would never in a million years guess their correct ages; countless times I've heard people shocked to find out someone's actual age whether higher or lower than they previously thought.
So with that in mind, I've come across people roughly the same ages as the characters in the movie who looked like them physically in terms of aging, though the only one that remains really hard to swallow is Steve Martin as Gil, but then I pin that down to his white hair picture him as black-haired or blonde and in his case his clothes only because it isn't youthful but it's the kind of clothes most middle-aged people wear (not formal or anything but business casual), which makes sense for his character because he had to grow up fast what with having had all those kids and a professional office company job (which is now stressing him out so much because his ethical compass really is clashing with his boss's standards), so he has been through a lot of life changes since his college days.
Mary Steenburgen as Karen does stand out as looking a little older, too, but we don't know her exact age, so she might be some years older than Gil. We hear that she graduated college 15 years ago, but that really doesn't necessarily mean she was just 22 then.
Nathan's worldview seems very intellectual and serious and he has a tiger-dad approach, so here that spills into his, again, middle-age-typical clothes choices, and those glasses (like lab ones), so it's interesting by the way that we see he has a fun, artistic side underneath it all when he serenades Susan walking down the aisle in the classroom ("Nathan, we're trying so hard to keep these kids off drugs.")
As for the Buckman patriarch, I've known 60-something-year-old people who look like that, and others who don't look that way until 80 instead, so it depends on things like genes and lifestyle.
Finally I want to say that Larry looked more mid-30's than 27 but I've met some 27-year-old people who look more like most 35-year-olds, there are plenty out there. I'm 30 and met people a little younger than me (like 25-27) who look definitely older than me and people in their mid-30's who look younger than said 27-year-old's, so it all depends (and people always think I'm much younger than 30 by looking at me, and act very shocked if they find out).
By the way, Martha Plimpton really was 18 playing 18-year-old Julie, and her performance was really remarkable; I mean all the performances were, but consider that Martha Plimpton actually was still in high school when she was in this. Ditto for teenage Joaquin Phoenix playing 13-year-old Gary a really layered, deep performance of someone going through much too much pain for that age, blaming himself for his father having abandoned his family and being absent all his life, making him very depressed, withdrawn, and confused in life in general, then slowly learning to overcome it all and gaining self-confidence as he comes out of his shell, and all of this is captured even in nuances like his facial expressions in his eyes and his vocal intonation, like when his voice is shaky at times he awkwardly or fearfully talks to his mother.
I got ve -
Crurned — 10 years ago(August 14, 2015 04:32 PM)
It's a combination of factors. Back in the 80's nutrition and exercise were not held in a high standard than nowadays. Also perhaps some of them were heavy smokers or borderline alcoholics. Combined with the stress of parenthood and spouse relations on top of work stress, that one can really make people age pretty fast.
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sonofbeach-sheet — 10 years ago(December 22, 2015 07:48 PM)
Jason Robards was a heavy smoker and alcoholic, plus a teenager during the Great Depression. So given his status, that was about the normal appearance for a man in his mid-60's then. As for the rest, don't know what to say for many. Tom Hulce looked about like what a 30 year old did back then.
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HOKfilms — 10 years ago(January 24, 2016 07:21 PM)
I think if you ignore how old theyre playing, all the characters look completely fine for who they are playing. Its not ridiculous to think they are all siblings and children of Jason Robards.
But yeah, everybody in the movie looks at least 35. lol
But then again, its more than how you look physically. Im 35 years old and you'd think I was 25 just based on how I look.
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Emily Blunt
