_The Best Years of a Life_ is like an old man having sex: it starts off passionate, loses its rhythm in the middle and ends with an unusual climax. Look, I loathe romances and don't seek out films about the elderly so of course I wonder why I liked this one as much as I did. Maybe because the jazz flashbacks (to the original film--Lelouch's 1966 classic _A Man and A Woman_) were of such a melancholy beauty.