"Is there really a leap year?"

Still sick, but getting better, weak but restless, I decided to see "Crazy Heart" last night. I was prepared for a typically romantic story about a loser whose tremendous talents make his foibles an adjutant to his accomplishments. I was terribly wrong.

I stood in line outside the box office in front of a mother and her teenage daughter, and I couldn't help but overhear their conversation as they discussed which movie to see. I was startled when the daughter asked, "Is there really such a thing as a leap year?" a question, I presumed, brought about by the movie of that name. Then her mother said something about "It's Complicated," to which the daughter replied, "I don't like old people." And of course she is typical of a generation taught by the Disney Channel that parents are buffoons in need of correction by children and by the news that old people are all dangerous criminals in search of young victims. "Jesus Christ," I thought, "I should have stayed on the couch." But just then an old man at the head of the line cried out to someone, "What's it called? That's right, that's right." Then gruffly funny, "I keep thinking The Incredibles", he said, moving in that arthritically abbreviated way old men have as they pat around their pockets in a quick panic for something they fear they've misplaced. People all around smiled and chuckled to one another, and a fellow in line ahead of me, a man in his late forties, said, "I'm not going to laugh, I'm not that far from it myself." But he was chuckling as he said it.

We all think we're far enough from it.

I won't tell you about the movie. Rather, I'll simply warn you. The movie will not make you feel better about anything. Jeff Bridges deserves every award they give for acting this year, but it won't make you feel good. He is brilliant, but you will never look at him in the same way again. If you've ever made a mistake in your life that has cost you something you didn't want to lose, you'll live with it front and center for a long while after the end of the movie. Really. It's that bad.

The trailer for the film ends with Robert Duval's character opining, "It's never too late, son. It's never too late." But the statement is enigmatic, and the implications are haunting.

See the film, by all means, but don't say I didn't warn you. I'm pretty sure you won't have to stand in line in front of a teenager who is not certain what leap year is proclaiming, "I don't like old people." But I can't guarantee it.