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Though Malkmus has maintained much of his lean, boyish West Coast cool, even edging toward late middle age, the quintet looks older and wiser, no longer burdened by their uncomfortable relationship with success.

Though it’s a comedy at its heart, the story has the bittersweet candor and moments of earnestness that one might expect from characters confronting their lives at middle age.

Where other hobbies may be difficult to pick up in middle age, comedy, with its low entrance fee and ubiquitous nature, is an inherently accessible art form.

To be sure, an assassin’s bullets robbed Lennon and McCartney of any hope for establishing a new and abiding friendship in middle age.

But, in middle age, his career spiked again.