Move over, silver foxes: Hollywood gets to grips with the age gap

The Sundance film festival revealed a growing challenge to the traditional casting of middle-aged men with much younger women

It's a contentious issue. The Hollywood age gap romance - the habitual casting of an older male actor and a much younger female actor, for so long accepted as the norm - is now meeting with increasing scrutiny and criticism from audiences. Some filmmakers, identifying a hot-button topic, have started to respond.

At the Sundance film festival last month, age gaps in relationships were a recurring theme. But rather than the traditional approach, of hoping that people wouldn't notice an age difference which could practically be measured on a geological time frame, filmmakers are instead emphasising and examining the issue.