YMMV / Harold and Maude

• Alternative Character Interpretation: None of Harold's friends or family ever actually meet Maude. Is she real, or just Harold's Tyler Durden?
  • Not so. His uncle sees her acting as the "protestor" whom Harold pretends to kill out of patriotic rage.
• Audience-Alienating Premise: Perhaps the world was not ready for a premise as quirky as a faux suicidal Emo Teen and his elderly Manic Pixie Dream Girl romantic partner. To a lesser extent, though, the "young man dates older woman" pitch alone has turned off viewers who immediately assume that we will see them repeatedly making out or having sex (there is exactly one post-sex scene - a kissing scene was filmed and later cut by the studio, but it does appear briefly in the 1971 trailer).

• Crosses the Line Twice: Boy obsessed with being dead? Funny. Boy who stages his own suicide for attention? Awful. Boy who turns staging his own suicide into a recurring act? Funny again.
• Cult Classic: One of the first examples of a quirky film that gradually built up a very loyal following, becoming a Midnight Movie staple at theatres by the end of the decades, and its reputation has only increased since then.
• Once Original, Now Common: In 1971, something as morbidly quirky as a suicidal teen falling in love with a feisty old woman was enough to drive audiences away in droves. These days, you're likely to find at least one similar black comedy released within the past few years with near-identical premises be lauded as "fresh and original."
• One-Scene Wonder:
  • Tom Skerritt (credited as "M. Borman"^note A jokey reference to Nazi official Martin Bormann, who was mistakenly thought to be in hiding at the time) as the motorcycle cop.
  • Also Ellen Geer as Sunshine.
  • The Priest definitely counts.
• Squick: The priest goes on for a very long scene about this.

• Vindicated by History: The film was released to mediocre reviews and unprofitability, largely on account of its offbeat premise alienating audiences and critics not jiving with its grim, existential style of humor. Nowadays, it's hailed as a Black Comedy classic that was firmly ahead of its time, inducted into the National Film Registry and The Criterion Collection.

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