Evengyny Thanks for the memories!

AnhartLinkin This story has more twists and turns than a second-rate soap opera.

Gurlyndrobb While it doesn't offer any answers, it both thrills and makes you think.

Bea Swanson This film is so real. It treats its characters with so much care and sensitivity.

dougdoepke Plot (or what there is of it)—Husband Blume is divorced by wife Nina after she catches him philandering. Trouble is he still loves her and spends the rest of the time trying to get her back. So how is true love distinguished from true obsession.Critic Leonard Maltin calls the movie "self-indulgent" and he's right. It's like writer-director Mazurski has gone off on his own personal tangent and made a movie of it. Segal does manage a role in low-key style that could have easily gone over the top. Too bad there's no hint of his very real comedic skills, which I somehow kept expecting. Also, he may get more close-ups than my favorite puppy. As Nina, Anspach has a different look with her long thin face and cloud of platinum hair. Hers is the more interesting character as she struggles with middle-class conventions like marriage. But what's with Shelley Winters' tacked on role as a grieving divorcée. Perhaps Mazurski was reminding casting directors what an inimitable presence she is.Arguably, the film's best parts are those reflecting political (the farm workers) and youth culture (the "swingers" meeting place) of the early 1970's. It seems Nina is groping for a life outside the conventional but is emotionally stuck halfway. Anyway, her character is the more interesting of the two. At the same time, Elmo (Kristofferson) appears more like a rootless hippie, while Nina connects with that unconventional side. Even Blume seems attracted when a kind of unconventional threesome forms. Nonetheless, such deeper themes remain conjectural, while the movie itself over-stretches into a barely entertaining two hours that a graphic rape scene doesn't help. All in all, Mazurski's screenplay may be based on a personal experience that somehow got carried away.

mjkh Blume in Love is honestly one of Paul Mazursky's best films. George Segal is fantastic as the charismatic, yet deeply pathetic protagonist Stephen Blume and Kris Kristofferson bounces off of him enjoyably in one of his early film roles. The script creates an engrossing, believable portrait of romantic relationships in the 1970s, while also having several laugh-out-loud moments. Additionally, Mazursky makes great use out of both Los Angeles and Venice, Italy as locations. Dramatically effective and boasting several memorable characters, Blume in Love is in the same league as An Unmarried Woman and is a a must-see for Mazursky fans.

tedr0113 I have to admit right off the bat I have no fondness for Paul Mazursky's films. I remember reading, somewhere, that he was a West Coast Woody Allen. If that is true, then he is Woody Allen without humor, or more importantly, without soul. This film follows George Segal (whom I've always liked) through his marriage, divorce and re-attachment with Susan Anspach. There is nothing innately offensive in this film. In fact, it strikes me as though it should be stuck in a time capsule of 70's film-making. And kept there. This is one of those films where you can't exactly pinpoint what is wrong with it but simply leaves you unsatisfied, unless you are a 70's film historian, I suppose. There is no connection with Blume, unless you are of his milieu. While (being NJ bound) I have affection for LA and the 70s, this film struck me as ingrown, meant for cognoscenti. A smart "ha-ha" that shows no outreach. And little comedy.This is not as smug as "An Unmarried Woman" But at the end of 1:55, you will have shrugged your shoulders and gone "huh?" Maybe it was potent in 1973. But today, that just means its dated.

Brigid O Sullivan (wisewebwoman) This was a fairly ground breaking movie when it came out first. I saw it in the theatre and we talked about it for days afterwards, especially the character of Nina Blume, here played by Susan Anspach. She was complex, feminist, independent and strong and also very likable. That is what I remember, that and the closing scene in Venice with Tristan Und Isolde played by the orchestra and the camera panning upwards, leaving all the conversations taking place in the piazza still ringing in our ears until the last freeze frame. **Warning***Spoiler*** However, and it is a big however, the rape scene, watched anew is sickening and repulsive and had me disliking Steven Blume, played by Gerge Segal, intensely. This does not bode well for the remaining quarter of the movie which demands that I applaud his compulsive obsessive efforts to woo his ex-wife back into his life. I am surprised none of the other reviewers addressed this truly nasty scene on which so much hinges thereafter. ****spoiler over**** Kris Kristofferson gives one of his standard hazy pot-filled performances, all charmy, twinkly eyed and gravelly voiced. So charmy in fact that Steven Blume along with Nina falls for him too. Marsha Mason gives a multi-layered characterization, whatever happened to her, I believe she married Neil Simon, the playwright. A fine performance. Susan steals the show, her beauty at times is breathtaking. One scene has Steven looking at her across a room and she is ethereal, all blonde curly hair and soulful eyes. 7 out of 10, short on plot, long on talent.