These days Elliott Gould’s long, saturnine features have sunk beneath a turf of gray stubble, but the nasal blare of his trombone voice is exactly the same as always. It is startling to hear that sharply intelligent sound emanating from the elderly, shuffling title character of “Fred Won’t Move Out,” but it works.
Gould shows the lights are still ablaze in Fred’s mind as the body dwindles. Meanwhile, his Alzheimer’s-stricken wife, Susan (Judith Roberts), moans piteously just being shifted from her wheelchair onto a couch. The couple’s two middle-aged children, Carol and Bob, want to move them both into what’s termed, in the currently fashionable euphemism, an “assisted-living facility.”
These are not selfish offspring. As played by Stephanie Roth Haberle and Fred Melamed, they’re basically decent people who can’t cope anymore.
This carefully observed slice of life is dragged down by the dreary and distracting hand-held camerawork. The tart script offers moments including an argument about whether Susan’s music therapist deserves to get one of their everything bagels. Eventually, though, the movie succumbs to pessimism. For “Fred,” all the love in the world won’t keep old age from being a state of misery.