Life at the End of the Road Depicted in The Leisure Seeker

Ella and John Spencer (Helen Mirren, Donald Sutherland) seem to be nice people: friendly, educated, liberal, with two adult children and their golden years ahead. They have it all, including (respectively) terminal cancer and Alzheimer’s. Ella installs her faithful-and-forgetful hubby behind the wheel of their beat-up RV, “The Leisure Seeker,” and plops her failing body down beside him for the road trip of their lives. As the kids scramble to get their ailing parents to come home, we learn more about their parents. While it’s not exactly a Thelma and Louise kind of road trip, you’ll witness action, jealously, and shocking revelations — not to mention a duo very much headed for their own sort of cliff. This thoughtful, well-composed film is made worthwhile by its extraordinary leads. THE WORD: A portrait of lives bound together and a look at the often avoided reality that is the end of the proverbial road. THE WHERE: Theaters