Being a cougar is the new American Dream
nypost.comhilarious stuff of Jennifer Coolidge as Stifler’s mom in “American Pie” or a scandalous romp like Anne Bancroft’s Mrs. Robinson in “The Graduate.” On TV, they were risque primetime soap fodder a la Eva Longoria’s Gabrielle on “Desperate Housewives.” All of them, you’ll recall, were bored spouses having a roll in the hay.To state the obvious, the ABC and TBS show “Cougar Town” was no deep prestige drama.Nowadays, however, a more mature woman hopping into bed with a fit twenty-something is being portrayed, not as taboo or sultry, but a great and noble American aspiration.
Life, liberty and the pursuit of Coreys.Take last week’s “A Family Affair” on Netflix, in which Nicole Kidman plays a widowed California writer and mother named Brooke who unexpectedly hooks up with action star Chris Cole played by by Zac Efron — 21 years her junior.While there is some comedy that emerges from a quirky situation — her daughter is the hunk’s personal assistant — the film is, for the most part, about a drifting woman whose husband died 11 years earlier and is closed off to finding love again.She has, erm, quite the change of heart when she feverishly rips off Efron’s shirt and marvels at his abs as though she’s just encountered the Great Pyramid of Giza.
We’re meant to rabidly applaud this personal victory as if its our own and maybe even shed a small tear.Proving the movie’s more than pure frivolity, Kathy Bates is in it.A similar headline-maker, “The Idea of You,” debuted in March on Prime Video, and it’s sincere as a saint.
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