Burt

Burt follows a 69-year-old Los Angeles musician (played by Burt Berger, who is  playing his own fictional image), living with Parkinson’s disease whose modest, independent life is disrupted when Sammy (played by Oliver Cooper), a young stranger from New York, appears and claims to be his long-lost son. Having always dreamed of becoming a father, Burt welcomes Sammy warmly and invites him into the home he shares with his irritable landlord, Steve. Over the course of an eventful weekend, their emerging bond is complicated by suspicion, hidden motives, and difficult questions about trust, family, and the longing for connection – as it turns out Sammy is not really Burt’s son.

Two Thoughts About the Film

The first thought that crossed my mind while watching Burt was that sometimes “small” films are, in fact, “big” films. Burt is not a major Hollywood production. Its limited budget is evident, and its story and plot are relatively simple. The film revolves primarily around two characters: Burt, the older musician, and Sammy, the man pretending to be his son.

And yet, perhaps surprisingly, such “small” films can turn out to be genuine gems. Burt is a warm and deeply human film. It tells a small story that is also a much larger one: a story about humanity, old age, and intergenerational relationships. It focuses on older people living at the margins—people who do not appear in newspaper headlines or celebrity columns. These are older people confronting some of the harsh realities of ageing: illness, loneliness, and poverty. The film captures beautifully the simple yet complex—and sometimes cruel—human experience of growing old.

My second thought concerns an issue that is all too familiar in the field of ageing: the abuse, neglect, and exploitation of older people. Tragically, older people are frequently targeted by financial scams and predatory offenders who take advantage of their vulnerability and loneliness. Research shows, however, that those responsible are often family members, caregivers, or people who are themselves older, vulnerable, or burdened by significant challenges of their own.

This is part of what makes addressing elder abuse and neglect so difficult: black and white become entangled within the grey and complicated reality of human life. Burt—symbolically filmed in black and white—draws our attention precisely to these shades of grey, both in life generally and in old age in particular.

So, is Burt a good gerontological film? Yes, definitely. It is not light entertainment, nor is it an easy or conventionally enjoyable film. It is, however, a sensitive, gentle, and modest gerontological film that brings to the surface a wide range of important issues concerning ageing and later life.

USA

2025

Director: Joe Burke

Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bO4jvnUSVSU