If you’re keen to enter a relationship with an older partner, perhaps you’ve found your socializing options to be limited. You won’t always find suitable mature singles in trendy bars, nightclubs or other social settings. Your best bet is to try the online environment. Getting into digital cougar dating will introduce you to a diverse range of likely candidates for an age-gap romance. You can flirt in chat rooms. Send discreet private messages. Take your time building a rapport. By way of inspiration, how about ideas for conversational ice-breakers, such as action movies focusing on age-gap relationships? Here are our top five.
Notes on a Scandal
Based on a Booker-nominated novel by English writer Zoe Heller, the scandal referred to in this taut psychological drama is an affair between a lonely history teacher, Sheba (Cate Blanchett) and a young student, Steven (Andrew Simpson). Things take a darker twist when an older teacher, Barbara (Judi Dench), who has developed a friendship bordering on infatuation with Sheba, finds out about their illicit liaisons. The twisting plot makes for an emotional story that is certainly never short on edge-of-the-seat moments and is very well acted, especially by veteran actress Dench and Blanchett.
Copenhagen
Although this is essentially a coming-of-age tale set in the beautiful Danish city of the film’s title, its central theme is the age-gap relationship. William is visiting the Scandinavian country to find aspects of his mysterious past – he has a letter to deliver to William’s Danish grandfather, written by his father (who was abandoned as a child). En route, he bumps into a young waitress, Effy, and they strike up a friendship. After showing him around her hometown, this platonic connection develops into something more substantial, despite the age difference (William is 28). Again, this drama will draw you in as their partnership blossoms against the city’s romantic backdrop.
The Graduate
Surely one of the most iconic age-gap movies of all time, The Graduate made a star of Dustin Hoffman when it was first released in 1967. He plays Benjamin, who recently graduated, and is on the cusp of adulthood, but with no clear aim in life. Things take a dramatic twist when the wife of one of his father’s business associates, Mrs Robinson (Anne Bancroft), takes a shine to him. They embark on a passionate affair, only for Benjamin to fall for her daughter, Elaine (Katharine Ross), much to Mrs Robinson’s fury. The final action scene, where the lovestruck Benjamin rushes to the church to prevent Elaine’s arranged marriage, is a worthy climax to this wonderfully engaging story of a young man with a crush on a sensual older woman.
Frankie and Johnny
While the inspiration behind the film’s title is a traditional American song that climaxes in a woman shooting dead her unfaithful husband, this romantic action movie is, thankfully, a little less dramatic! Johnny (Al Pacino) is a middle-aged man just released from prison. Frankie (Michelle Pfeiffer) is a much younger, emotionally-scarred waitress. Their paths cross when Johnny is given a job as a cook in the restaurant where Frankie works. The path to true love is never easy, and the mismatched couple goes through many trials and tribulations before finally connecting.
Hick
An out-and-out action thriller, Hick stars Chloe Grace Moretz as a Nebraska teen, Luli, who receives the gift of a gun on her 13th birthday. After deciding to escape her dysfunctional home life, she heads to the bright lights of Las Vegas. Here she finds herself embroiled in various situations with older men, but always manages to get the upper hand!