Love Comes Lately (DVD) Otto Tausig, Barbara Hershey, Rhea Perlman NEW

Based on three short stories by Isaac Bashevis Singer (Yentl), Love Comes Lately braids fiction, fantasy, and autobiography into a bittersweet comedy-drama pitting the self-renewing power of male ego and libido against the inevitable physical decline of age. Though anchored in a long-time relationship with Reisel (Cheers and Taxi's Rhea Perlman), octogenarian author Max Kohn (Otto Tausig) uses his frequent book tours as opportunities to let erotic imagination take flight. There are fantasy flings with a needy widow (Caroline Aaron) and a Cuban housekeeper (Elizabeth Pena Lone Star), which then give way to a real-life intimate encounter with a former student (Barbara Hershey The Stunt Man). Finally, a fondly recalled but painful interlude with a free spirited woman (Tovah Feldsuh Kissing Jessica Stein) challenges Max's peace of mind even as it feeds his work. In Love Comes Lately, writer-director Jan Schutte "has gone above and beyond the call of dutiful adaptation" (Andrew Sarris, The New York Observer), using "excellent visual correlatives for the blurring of the line between Max and his writing" (Variety), to create an "atmospheric, exhilaratingly ambitious chamber piece" (Village Voice) and "a sympathetic portrait of late life lust and romance" (Time Out).