Hollywood's sexy vision of turning 60 isn't quite real

I recently enjoyed watching the "John Adams" miniseries on HBO and took away a wonderful line from it. An aging Ben Franklin, as he chases a woman, laments, "Oh, to be 70 again."

While I am not in the neighborhood of 70, I'd like to adapt that gem for my age bracket and say, "Oh, to be 60 as soon as possible." I say that because if Diane Keaton and Meryl Streep films are any indication of what happens to women after 60, then I am looking into a future of dates filled with attractive, funny, intelligent and financially stable men who find me, an older woman, just fascinating.

I can't wait!

I am now in my 50s, single and pretty much dateless, but Hollywood is promising me that romance and sex, yes even sex, is just around the corner. And that sex will be taking place in a five-bedroom house in Laurel Canyon or in a beachfront home in the Hamptons.

C'mon 60!

The 2014 movie "And So It Goes," directed by Rob Reiner and starring Keaton, 68, and Michael Douglas, 70, is described as "an improbable couple sharing a late-in-life romance."

It's the latest in a genre of films that are tantalizing me with what lies ahead. In the movie, Keaton and Douglas are neighbors in an upscale Connecticut neighborhood. Of course they don't like each other at first, but they eventually fall in love.

Never mind the fact that, in real life, Douglas is married to Catherine Zeta Jones, 25 years his junior. But in this story, he is captivated by his 68-year-old neighbor. My life will soon mirror this plot, no doubt.

In the 2009 film "It's Complicated," written and directed by Nancy Meyers, Meryl Streep finds herself with two men in love with her — ex-husband Alec Baldwin, and Steve Martin, who plays an architect with a great sense of humor. So he not only likes her, but he wants to build her a house, too! I have also noticed in all these films that the men who chase after the 60-somethings are always so accomplished.

There's not an unemployed salesman or someone on a fixed income in any of the story lines. These men are the same guys you see in the investment advertisements of the Sunday magazine section. Streep was 60 when she made this film, so I am sure looking forward to juggling all those simultaneous relationships and those portfolios, too, in a few more years.

Meyers also wrote and directed "Something's Gotta Give" (2003), starring Keaton and Jack Nicholson. Although Keaton was only 57 at the time she made this film, it followed a similar premise. They fall for each other, but because Nicholson's an idiot, she must fall into the arms of Keanu Reeves, who plays a doctor 25 years her junior. So according to Meyers, I have TWO fantastic things to look forward to! Men like Jack Nicholson will fall for me, and hottie doctors like Keanu Reeves will, too! I think I'd better take up juggling because it looks like I'll be doing a lot of that.

Of course, by now you may sense my sarcasm. I understand that Hollywood is in the business of marketing dreams and it's not always based in reality. Films based in reality are called documentaries, but I think that maybe these films are setting the bar a little too high.

Here is my reality. It's called "Something Complicated's Gotta Go," and it's my story: Diane Keaton, playing me, gets home on a Friday night to her small, rented house. It's a miracle every month that she can pay the rent, since she is a single mom with a 26-year-old son still living at home. Her best friends come by and they drink wine, smoke one cigarette and laugh. They compare sagging chins and discuss "intestinal issues."

Saturday morning, Diane spends the early part of the day cleaning her house, doing some errands and getting the oil changed in her car.

It's now Saturday night, and she reflects on the last date she had almost a year ago. It was a recently divorced teacher who thought she'd like to have sex in her driveway. (She didn't.) Diane (me) has lots of time between dates — usually about a year — to get ready, decide what she is going to wear and to check him out on Facebook. Oh, wait. Here comes a 35-year-old guy running up her driveway. Is it Dr. Keanu? Oh, no. It's actually the landscaper who plowed your driveway last winter: You still owe him money.

I will admit, I am still hanging on by that proverbial thread of hope. Tick, tick, tick, the clock is moving, and I will be reaching that magical age before you know it.

I'll wake up and there will be that long line of fascinating, smart, witty, successful men, all hoping to spend some time with me — because I'm 60 and simply irresistible!

Carole Trottere,
Old Field

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