The two films are thoughtful reckonings with aging, specifically with the atrophying of a certain, narrow performance of manhood and the attendant anxieties of that decline. Both also shine a light on the rigorous reflection that often doesn't happen in the stubborn, real-life political world -- but should.

Toward the beginning of "Once Upon a Time," Leonardo DiCaprio's character, an actor, clues viewers in on one of the movie's primary conflicts when he says to his stunt double, played by Brad Pitt: "It's official, old buddy. I'm a has been. ... If coming face to face with the failure that is your career ain't worth crying about, then I don't know what the f*** is."

In a similar vein, Robert De Niro's mob figure, when looking back on his decades spent as part of the criminal underbelly, remarks: "Russell, he had a stroke. Fat Tony, he couldn't control his urine no more. And my arthritis, that started in the foxholes of Anzio, was eating away at my lower back now, and I couldn't feel much in my feet no more. I needed a cane."

It's a humble account of how time catches up with everyone -- big-boss men, too.

Different world

How different the world -- and people's appraisal of it -- is off the screen!

"Maybe. But lots of people can enter. If you wanted to enter and run for President of the United States, you could've done that. But don't complain to me that you're not in the race. It was up to you," Bloomberg said.

Or take, once again, Biden. Ahead of the Iowa caucuses in February, his campaign is testing out a slogan: "NO MALARKEY!" The point is to communicate Biden's cut-to-the-chase approach to politics. The term's mixed reception, however, is illustrative of the sentiment held by a number of people that a candidate with so much experience over so many years is out of touch today.

Endurance

All of which is to say: These men -- ones like them -- don't seem to be going anywhere.

This isn't to beat up on the Democratic Party over its image problem. After all, the GOP is much more homogenous.

Rather, it's to highlight how, for a party for whom diversity isn't gloss, it still struggles mightily to reflect its base in a meaningful manner. And in some cases, there's a protectiveness over the status quo -- or at least a reluctance to challenge it.

Bringing the party's reality in line with its possibility will require that Democrats ask themselves what "Once Upon a Time" and "The Irishman" quietly ask their audiences: What does the future look like? And how might we figure in it?