Thank you, Amazon streaming, for Impossible Dreamers, which follows several 60-plus-year-old athletes as they train and compete around the world. It’s thrilling to see them do their thing as swimmers, speed-walkers and tango-dancers. It’s a wonderful example of the ways our bodies can surprise us, and a great argument against stereotyping elders as slow, doddering, and helpless.
Almost every one of the athletes profiled is amazingly fit and overcame some sort of obstacle– but before the filmmakers started their cameras. One of them, a spunky Unitarian minister who wants to box competitively, says she used to be fifty pounds heavier.
This viewer would have loved to see the before-and-after transformation captured. To an older person who has aches and pains and doesn’t know how to get from here to there, the athletes come across as lucky souls who won the genetic lottery, or who already know how to be athletic before they began the aging process.
No doubt, the film is inspiring—like an Upworthy video on steroids. It’s great to watch while you’re on the treadmill to lift your spirit, but the lack of narrative arc means it’s not worth hosting a movie night for.
–Amy Keyishian
When we ran our recent swimsuit story, some of you did not like that we were showing thin young models. And you know what? We said, “Damn straight.” This got us to thinking why we–as mature women–have to look at these willowy teens (or just about) and try to imagine ourselves in their suits. We need real bikini models of our very own.
It’s easy to feel full-on panicked about easing out of work, given all the dire news on the topic. According to US Census and JP Morgan Asset Management, 74 percent of Americans are behind on their retirement planning.
TMI alert! I’m a random stranger, about to tell you quite a bit about my private parts. If that’s not okay with you—and really, who could blame you?—click onward. But I wouldn’t. That’s because I could very well be talking about yours.
Have you ever heard a name on the news and thought, “Is that the kid I used to know?” Stephanie Dolgoff looks at why our possible brushes with future fame (or infamy) are so stupidly thrilling.
Was it his fault? Hers? Both? Neither? One woman navigates the hard path ahead as 29 years of coupledom unravel and finds a strange silver lining.
From occasional exerciser to competitive badass: How Marty Munson found her power and a whole new way of life as a midlife athlete.
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