This week on The Watchers, Jodie and Andrea are talking about Harold and Maude, Hal Ashby’s unconventional romance that’s become a cult classic, an aesthetic touchstone, and (maybe?) the origin story of the manic pixie dream girl. We get into: why Maude might be the blueprint for the trope, and why she also transcends it. Why Harold is relatable to those of us who might delight in our melancholy, even if Maude is really who we should be putting on our vision board, the movie’s deep influence on today’s filmmakers (looking at you, Wes Anderson), and how Ashby originally had a very different vision for the film's soundtrack, including plans for another musician to both score the film and star in it.

Recommended Reading:

"A Boy of Twenty and a Woman of Eighty" By Leticia Kent

"The Greatest Comedic Tragedy: How Harold and Maude Redefined Holocaust Humor" - Film Cred

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Thanks to Kitzy (@heykitzy) for the use of our theme song, "No Book Club."