Speaker 0 00:00:03 Hi, and welcome to does this make me local, a podcast about aging as gracefully as possible when you're just not ready for two 40 something year old friends will find themselves kind of straddling that really odd period of time when aging and everything that is associated with is starting to become a much bigger part of our lives. We're definitely curious, but at the same time, rather terrified about aging. I'm Schiff. I'm a health science nerd and pop culture themes, and I'm sin and adult and waiting obsessed with finance and self-help books. We're going to be talking about the stereotypes of aging and how they affect us. And we'll also be doing some deeper dives into some interesting topics, such as what it's like to get old in the society dating when you're older and scientific advancements in anti-aging products and even evolution and scientific thinking around aging and throughout it all we chat rant laugh about or adulting mishaps of which there are so, so, so many. So join us as we navigate our second quarter-life crisis.
Speaker 0 00:01:08 Hi, welcome to this week's episode of does this make me look old? Hi. So today we're going to be taking a little bit of a detour. We're kind of going to be doing this reaction piece on this movie that we saw that recently came out on Netflix and Amazon prime, but surprisingly enough, I'm pretty sure it's based on real life events. They don't mention it there, but like we did a little bit of digging and mainly because of like sheer fear, I'm traumatized. And I think, and I blame shift for this because she has literally traumatized me. I basically made her watch this movie cause it looks really good. And I thought, you know, it was good. It was good. It was a good, it was good. I mean, I'm not the trauma aside. Yeah, exactly. So the movie we're talking about is I care a lot and I was interested in the movie mainly because it stars Rosamund pike of gone girl fame and Diane weest and Peter Dinklage who are all like, pretty much like acting powerhouses.
Speaker 0 00:02:09 And, uh, it just looked Messina to have Christmasy night. Oh my God. I love Christmas scene, I guess. Yeah. He, Oh, he played just such a, he's played such a funny character as amazing anyway, so, but you know, see, I, you know, Lou boiler alert, if you haven't watched it, um, I suggest you go watch it first. Yes. Yeah. Actually yes, we will be spoiling the movie. So if you don't want to know what happens, then you can like press hard pause or fast forward to the end where we talk about kind of some of the real life events that probably inspired this movie. I have a very sneaking suspicion that they inspired this movie, but, um, and this is where I realized we should do more research like on the movie. Oh yeah. I wonder. Well, we should have also watched the full credits because, Oh, do you think that they talk about it to the full
Speaker 1 00:03:00 Credits?
Speaker 0 00:03:00 I didn't see it. I didn't see it. And the thing is is that if they do base it on a true story, then they usually say they would've started it off, like based on real life events or something. And they did, it's such a common thing that it's just, I don't know. I, I don't know. Yeah. Well, yeah. So the reason I wanted to watch it was because it seemed like this kind of like, kind of heisty, Mobby kind of film where it felt like the elderly woman in it kind of manages to, you know, upend things.
Speaker 1 00:03:33 Like there were times when I was laughing when I was like, I shouldn't actually laugh out loud at this.
Speaker 0 00:03:38 It's very, it's still traumatized. It's really? Yeah. So the movie leans very heavily into dark humor. So if that isn't your shtick don't watch it, but, um, yeah. Do watch it. Yeah. So, uh, just to give you a little bit of an overview, but what the movie is about, it's about Roseman pike, who is a guardian. So she is a court appointed guardian for strangers, for the elderly. Um, and so she basically exploits these people, um, using a very, um, intricate web of compatriots who all work in coordinate. Like basically they work in concert in order to get a, an elderly patient who, or an elderly person who doesn't really have any family into her care, um, after which she basically built them out of their life, savings, sells their home and, uh, sells their possessions, uh, and you know, all under the guise of the fact that she's taking care of them and, you know, paying for their care in an, you know, in a retirement home.
Speaker 0 00:05:02 But anyway, she, she and her partner basically, um, find one of these, uh, elderly people that they label up, quote cherry, which is basically an very well what they deemed to be a very wealthy person without any living relatives and who the, yeah. They can basically built out of like their entire life saving without worrying about repercussions. Yeah. There's no repercussions. And so, um, yeah, but they don't know who they're messing with because they try to, uh, well, they actually do succeed in putting, um, this quote unquote cherry who was Diane weest, um, into a home, but then they don't realize that she's actually affiliated with the Russian mob and then, you know, hi-jinks in SU um,
Speaker 1 00:05:54 But at the same time though, when you start thinking about how they actually trick her into going with them and, and just the cold, but reasonable way, like they sounded so real.
Speaker 0 00:06:09 Yeah. Well, I mean, it's Roseman pike. She, she manages to exude that kind of icy efficiently. She did, she was a great job.
Speaker 1 00:06:17 She did, uh, she was brilliant, but, um, but it was just scary that, you know, it was so easy the way they sort of, you know, like there was that one scene where she was like, so do you have a cell phone? And she takes the cell phone and all of a sudden she just puts the cell phone away and doesn't give it back. Yeah. And it was just so smoothly done. And it's terrifying because what would you do with this happened to you? And I don't know, I'm just kind of having these scary flash forwards. That's like, this is my, um, this is like a scary version of like, you know, my, uh, hypochondriac. Oh, thank you.
Speaker 0 00:07:04 Are you basically, you're seeing this happen to you in real life
Speaker 1 00:07:07 And now I'm like, Oh my gosh, like, what do I do? Um, yeah, no, I need to have a safe word. I think I've realized like, I'm going to have a safe word. You guys have to come. Right.
Speaker 0 00:07:18 And make sure
Speaker 1 00:07:20 That no stupid court appointed guardian ever takes possession of my state.
Speaker 0 00:07:29 Yeah. I mean, yeah. So like it's, it's actually quite chilling. So the movie itself was the movie itself is it's actually, you know, it's entertaining. Um, and you know, eventually karma comes to bite certain people back in the ass, but like, um, they were all awful people. They were all awful people. I know, I couldn't believe it. It was like, it was a movie where you were just like, I don't know who I'm supposed to be rooting for. Cause I don't root for any of you. The only person that really had nothing to do with anything was Diane East character. I mean, she was, you know, she's just the mom and she like, you know, cause I, yeah, cause I like, I don't know, like even when, well, at some point she takes a raw Roseman pike into a choke hold, but at that time I was kind of rooting for her.
Speaker 0 00:08:23 You can go girl <inaudible> Oh my goodness. But yeah. So, uh, so what was I going to say is yeah, so the movie itself is quite entertaining, but the actual events on which this like the, the premise of it is kind of very similar to this other article. Well, it's sort of the premise around it. This is very worrisome because basically it just, it shows that people could take ownership of your estate. Um, if they deem you to be, you know, unable to take care of it on your own. And um, and so I remember, yeah. So I remember like, as we're watching this movie, we're like, can this happen in real life? And it turns out it can cause it has exactly, which was not, was the eyeopening moment for me. Cause I thought it was just going to be this high Jinxy movie about like this completely surreal event that happens and immuno, I didn't even think that this could happen and then, but then you find out that, Oh no, it can.
Speaker 0 00:09:23 So in, yeah. So we did a little bit of internet sleuthing and the new Yorker actually there was an article written in 2017 about justice thing. And it was just about how elderly people can basically have their rights taken care, like taken away. Yeah. And it was kind of eye-opening because a lot of the same beats that happened in this movie happened to people in real life, in, um, in Nevada. And uh, I think like what I found. So, you know, so when you're watching this movie, you know, they're talking about people who have, um, or like Rosamund pike takes on the guardianship of people, of elderly people who do not have anyone in their family, except for like the one person at the beginning whose son couldn't come in and see her. Yeah. But overall she tries to find people that actually don't have very much family. And so I thought, Oh, okay. I can understand that this proportion of society would be vulnerable, but apparently you can still have family and have this done to them. Like it was, it was very, very upsetting. So yeah. So the new Yorker article actually talks about us a specific family.
Speaker 1 00:10:36 I think what scared me though, when we were reading that article was the fact that it happened like in real life, the example that we're thinking of. So the article is called how the elderly, it was their rights. And I think it was like, um, it was a new Yorker article and we'll link it up in our website. Um, and um, yeah. So I think what scared me though, was that it happened to a couple who had each other well
Speaker 0 00:11:00 And they had a daughter and they had a daughter who would
Speaker 1 00:11:02 Drop by every single day. Yeah. And distill happened to them. Yeah. And I was like, Oh my God. Like if it can happen to someone with a loving family, people who are care, taking care of them and drop, you know, like, and, and like, can you imagine like someone even more vulnerable?
Speaker 0 00:11:21 Oh yeah, no. I like what that was, what I found shocking was that like I understood that it could happen to people who are more vulnerable. I didn't think that it could happen to people who weren't as vulnerable, like the fact that they had a daughter who was like fully part of their lives,
Speaker 1 00:11:38 You know, what else is disturbing guys? The fact that, so once we went down this rabbit hole, there were several other deeper rabbit holes to go down. And so we came across a lot of these YouTube videos and I think what me even more, and I know you're using the words like traumas terrify scare a lot because that's exactly how I feel right now. I think I need a tub of ice cream to get over this. But as how many news articles, news clippings, there were of actual real life stories of guardians trying to scam lb elderly. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 0 00:12:15 Yeah. And not just in Nevada, like there were other, there were other, yeah. There were other places and like, yeah. And actually that's the other thing about this new Yorker article was that they were saying that, um, it doesn't actually just happen in, in, um, in Nevada, but what they do find is that it does happen in places in which there are a lot of retired people. So it's like Florida, Florida. So yeah. So then what they, yeah. So this is what it quotes in. This is a quote in the article. So he basically, um, this, uh, this person named Richard Black, he's actually director of a national organization called Americans against abusive probate guardianship basically finds that there are victims in dozens of hotspots where guardianship abuse is prevalent, mainly because they attract retirees in Palm beach, Sarasota, Naples, Albuquerque, and San Antonio. So that th that's a big swath of the us.
Speaker 0 00:13:09 And it's yeah, that's what I find really upsetting is that they, elderly people congregate there to actually, you know, spend their retirement days and enjoy like, you know, the fruits of their like lengthy laborers. And then they ended up getting built up all of their money based off of these awful people who decide to, you know, put them under guardianship because of corrupt doctors who claimed that like they're demented and do not have the ability to take care of their finances and their lives. And then various levels, you know, they find willing people who like push it along and then I'll then end up giving guardianship over to total strangers. It's awful. Like, how do you
Speaker 1 00:13:49 Complicit? Like how do you, like you come across something like this and rather than try and help the vulnerable, like how do you become that person who says,
Speaker 0 00:14:02 Because they're making money off it, that's how they do it.
Speaker 1 00:14:08 It is though, like, you know, there has to be some kind of a moral compass at some place.
Speaker 0 00:14:11 You know what I mean? But no, this, this that's what this woman did. She found a doctor, she found a dog. Like she, she actually had access to a doctor, but then they said, no, I'm not going to do this. So then she found a doctor who would like, right. Yeah. That's all you do is you just keep going until you find somebody who doesn't care.
Speaker 1 00:14:31 Yeah. No, I'm, I'm really upset.
Speaker 0 00:14:35 Yeah. It was interesting. It's interesting how this movie can kind of bring you to like the realization that this is actually happening, happening in, in real time to people. I know. And I, what I also found upsetting was that, you know, when we were going down these like YouTube and article rabbit holes was, some of them were recent. Like some, like one recent, like one was very recent. Like it was in November of 2020 where realtor one, right? Yeah. Where, where a realtor replaced a woman under guardianship so that she could have access to her house and potentially sell it. Like, I don't think she managed to sell it yet though. Right?
Speaker 1 00:15:10 No, I think she lost the case. If I remember correctly, we just saw so many of those videos that I'm trying to remember. Oh, wait, that's the one with the, the grand nephew, the grand nephew. Yeah. No, I think she didn't manage to sell it like that.
Speaker 0 00:15:24 I think she managed to get the grand nephew barred from seeing barred from seeing his, his aunt. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. So I know that that's the other thing is that if these people are placed under guardianship, then the guardian has complete control over their lives. Like they can claim to the judge that they are unfit to stand, you know, to stand witness to their own trials. Like they can prevent family members from seeing them. It's just awful. Yeah.
Speaker 1 00:15:56 Yeah. I mean, I guess we need to do, like, maybe you look this up at some place and, you know, figure this out, but I'm just shocked that there aren't more controls in place legally.
Speaker 0 00:16:10 Yeah, exactly. Stop
Speaker 1 00:16:12 Like one person, especially if it's a court appointed guardian, like I get it, like, you know, there are, I'm sure there are legit cases when someone needs the, the spirit of w you know, what a guardian is supposed to do. Exactly. Um, and, and so I understand the need for one, but there has to be some kind of know an oversight to sort of ensure that if you're not being built and you're not being abused.
Speaker 0 00:16:42 No, I agree. I know. Well, I mean, like, what I found really strange was that they ha like that being a guardian allowed you access to someone's accounts. Like, I would think that there'd be a little bit more oversight into that. Like, I mean, I get that if you are a guardian of somebody, you do need access to money in order to take care of them, but then you would think that there would be some sort of process in place. Like, you know, if you decided to take out like a hundred thousand dollars, that somebody would be like, Hey, that's a lot of money to take out. Like, what are you using this for? Or, you know, like, or like, yeah. I don't, I don't know. It's, uh, it's really tricky.
Speaker 1 00:17:25 I think another disturbing element of the whole thing, and this was in the movie was that they had these packages and the basic package was where she was like, you know, to sing, um, to put the person on the basic package, which was soup and oatmeal. And that in itself was also disturbing because it's kind of like, it brings the classism into, right. Like if you don't have enough money and you are old and basically your nourishment will be the bare basic, which is here, have, you know, the Oliver twist of, of the old age home. Right? Like, here's your bowl of oatmeal and your here's your bowl of soup.
Speaker 0 00:18:08 Yeah. Here's the bare minimum to keep you alive, basically. It's yeah, I know. Well, I mean, what I found really crazy in the movie was that everything, everything that she did, you would be, I would be thinking to myself, no, this can't be happening. Yeah. They're exaggerating this for the movie. This can't be happening in real life. And then you go to the new Yorker article and say, no, that happened and it's happening. Yeah, exactly. I mean, especially the one where, you know, and I can actually see this because it has echoes of what happened in like, you know, in the, in the fifties and sixties. And th like in psychiatric wards where people would just get medicated for no reason, especially when they were like quite rightly or quite justly, like upset at the situation that they were in. Like, you know, when Diane weest is like starting to get upset because she can't speak to the manager and she can't like, find them,
Speaker 1 00:19:04 Make it seem like she's the one who's being unreachable
Speaker 0 00:19:07 And belligerent, and then they like Medicaid. And it's just like, Oh, no, she's in the right here. Oh, I know. Like, it was just very upsetting, but then, but in this new Yorker article, that's what was happening. They were like medicating people kind of against their will and over medic and over-medicating them. And it was just,
Speaker 1 00:19:26 It's just, Oh my God,
Speaker 0 00:19:29 It's just awful. Um, but yeah. Yeah. And like, even like, like, and what I found really crazy was that, so in the movie, um, the minute that they managed to put Diane Weise character into the, into the old folks' home, they, um, they proceed to sell her house, but then they also proceed to sell her belongings and like, and one of them was like a Renoir print. And I was just like, Oh, that's interesting. It's a Renoir. And then I went back to the article and then that's what happened to this couple. Like, I think they had some Renoir lithographs, and guess what they got sold. Like it was, yeah, it was, it was, it was something else. So yeah, just like, it just, it just adds like a different like level or layer to the movie, because like you end up watching it on a totally different, like, with a totally different understanding,
Speaker 1 00:20:21 Funny. Right. Like ever since we started the podcast, like, I feel like that's kind of like, um, the lens in a lot of the shows where I'm like, Oh, that's okay.
Speaker 0 00:20:29 <inaudible>
Speaker 1 00:20:33 Sometimes the perks are nice. I'll be like, Ooh, that's the perk of getting old,
Speaker 0 00:20:39 But I just
Speaker 1 00:20:39 Do tend to view a lot of my shows and movies now, but that lens just keep an eye out for that, you know? Yeah. For the perspective that perspective.
Speaker 0 00:20:48 Yeah. For sure. No, exactly. So, um, but yeah, so overall I would recommend this movie. Yeah. Just, uh, just go into it with like a little bit of a,
Speaker 1 00:20:59 But, you know, open, I, this actually kind of makes me scared a little bit. Right. Because I mean, I know, I know this movie happened in the us, but I don't think I actually know what the situation is like in Canada.
Speaker 0 00:21:12 Yeah, exactly. Well, I mean,
Speaker 1 00:21:14 Well, I mean, hopefully we're better off here, right?
Speaker 0 00:21:18 Like yet you wouldn't think so, but then I, I have another story of where there was,
Speaker 1 00:21:24 Wait, something like this happened here. It wasn't, it isn't Gardy. Wow.
Speaker 0 00:21:28 Well, actually it is kind of a guardianship tale, but like yeah. It has something similar has happened in Canada. And I think, yeah. And anyway, we'll probably have to, I think we'll have to make this part two of a, of a podcast, but like definitely I think joint, I think maybe we'll do a little deeper dive into what happened in Canada and came back
Speaker 1 00:21:49 Actually intrigued. So you're going to have to, after we finish this, you're going to have to tell me a little bit about yeah, for sure. Well, I mean,
Speaker 0 00:21:57 I think it's because of the situation in Canada that also made me interested in this movie. And so yeah. We'll have to chat about that.
Speaker 1 00:22:05 Well, I just thought you, yeah. So shift basically calls me up and says, we have to watch this movie, but I assumed it's because it had Roseman like <inaudible>. Um, okay. So now that, that makes sense. So I'll look forward to hearing about this and then we're going to do another podcast on that piece, because I feel like we need to sort of discuss what it's like in Canada, for sure. Considering we live here and the situation is more dire here because as you're here, because I'm here, I need to know and be better prepared. So. All right. So basically on that note, um, we come to this, the end of this week's episode of does this make me look old,
Speaker 0 00:22:54 Join us again next time. Yep. Um, and, uh,
Speaker 1 00:22:58 In the meantime, basically connect with
Speaker 0 00:23:00 Us. Yeah. So just, yeah. Give us a shout on, um, the, well we're on social. So give us a shout on either Instagram, Facebook, or Twitter. So, um, on Instagram, Facebook we're at, does this make me look old? Um, and yeah. And then give us a shout on Twitter if you want. Um, we're at, does this make me look too on Twitter? Um, and, uh, yeah, feel free to tweet at us and share any feedback that you have for us on, um, you know, the stories that we've told you about, or, you know, if you have any ideas about other stories, um, you can also email us at, uh, DT MML,
[email protected] and yes, please, if you have a chance rate and review us on Apple podcasts because, um,
Speaker 1 00:23:46 Yeah, because then it just goes out. Yeah, for sure. It'll help us. It'll help other people find our podcast, which is a yeah. Something that, uh, we, you know, I just share, share to other people's. Yeah, exactly. Yep. And, um, until then, uh, let us know how you're aging and how you're handling it with or without grace and, uh, we'll see you next time. Yep. Sounds good.
Speaker 2 00:24:08 Bye bye.
