Contentar Best movie of this year hands down!

Cleveronix A different way of telling a story

Peereddi I was totally surprised at how great this film.You could feel your paranoia rise as the film went on and as you gradually learned the details of the real situation.

Frances Chung Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

Robert J. Maxwell This was written by Neil Simon but is more loose-limbed and subtle than most of his other work. It was directed efficiently by Elaine May and her daughter, Jeanne Berlin, has a prominent role as Charles Grodin's bride. They are in ecstasy, dancing to the tunes of Burt Bacharach. Both are bourgeois but differences soon emerge when they take off for their honeymoon in Miami. She pulls down her bodice and playfully bares her boobs to him while he's trying to drive on the crowded interstate. "STOP it, the TRUCK drivers will see!" She sulks a little.This is clearly Neil Simon territory, two slightly mismatched people, as in "The Odd Couple," only with far more nuance, as it develops.Grodin is conventionally handsome and young, while Berlin has more interesting characteristics. She's plumper than usual (too many Milky Ways) and she has strong, fleshy, attractive features. She is matronly towards Grodin and loving, too. Her voice is so nasal that it might make a good, irritating whine, but she speaks so slowly and mellifluously that her tone is endearing.The morning after their first night as a couple, they have breakfast in the attached motel restaurant. He eats his hamburger delicately, like a surgeon. She orders a double egg salad sandwich and a chocolate shake and smears everything all over her lips while Grodin stares aghast. "Want a bite?", she asks, offering him the half-eaten sandwich. And, "Leonard, look around. There's us in fifty years, isn't it?" Grodin looks over his shoulder to see a wizened, stooped old man trying to help his gnome-like wife into her coat. It's already funny and it's hardly begun. The film turns her into a repellent figure, covers her bright red body with cold cream and odium.Maybe it should have stuck with that one relationship -- Grodin and Berlin -- because half way through, Grodin falls for. Cybil Shepherd, the summum bonum of femininity, full of confidence, cute little quirks, and stunning. She's rich, she's beautiful, she's flirtatious, she has a perfect figure, she's indifferent, and she's a shiksa named Kelly. He bumps into her on the beach. You ought to see Miami Beach in the winter -- hardly a soul who isn't eligible for membership in AARP, wobbling stiffly about, retired, gray-haired, wrinkled, flabby, and brown. No kids. I take the caricature to be deliberate, another reminder of what Grodin and Berlin will be like in "forty or fifty years." Now the story takes us from Grodin feeling superior to Berlin, to Shepherd's Aryan Minnesota family and their goyim naches. Now HE gets to feel demeaned. The story is like a sandwich with a double filling of egg-salad humiliation and, while it's funny, it sort of disjoints the whole movie.The head of Kelly Corcoran's family is the very rich and anti-Semitic Eddie Albert, who is obnoxious throughout. But one of his friends is William Prince (the pharmacist's mate in "Destination Tokyo") whom I've always like because he and I share the same alma mater. Grodin dumps Berlin, gives her everything, and heads after Shepherd to Minneapolis, where he visits Kelly's house and her father threatens to kill him if he ever shows up again. Worse, Shepherd has almost forgotten him and now has no time for him because she's late for an English Lit class. The flirtation in Florida that she's laughed off, Grodin took seriously. It's like Bruno and Guy in Hitchcock's "Strangers on a Train." Shepherd, quite unconvincingly, changes her attitude after a brief conversation. At their marriage reception, Grodin finds himself talking to wealthy businessmen who manufacture tear gas. He's polite but not interested. Finally, he's isolated on a couch with only two ten-year olds listening to him before they too leave, out of boredom. Grodin sits alone, humming Burt Bacharach to himself, and we have little idea of where this is all headed. He's young, resourceful, and innovative, but alternately determined and then so impulsive we can doubt that he has functioning frontal lobes. Or he could go mad and start screaming at any moment.

SmileysWorld I had seen Ben Stiller's 2007 remake of this film.It was nothing short of awful,but I thought to myself,surely the original,which I had not as yet seen,isn't this bad.I went with the film's basic idea,which was funny yet tragic in a way,and decided to see if it told the story better.Took a while to find it because I can never find it on television,and it isn't available through my video mailing service.Finally found it on the web and gave it a gander.Overall,I was impressed.It was perfectly casted from top to bottom.Who wouldn't fall in love with Cybill Shepherd? I also enjoyed Eddie Albert as the "rich brick wall" of a father to Cybill's character.I did feel bad for the Grodin's bride and I do wish that they hadn't left her fate so open ended.The moral of the story is clear;Don't marry someone just because you are in a hurry to settle down.Sometimes true love takes a while.Wait for it.

jazmaan This movie recently became available on Netflix! It's even on their Instant Queue so you can watch it on demand.It's very different than the Ben Stiller remake (which I also enjoyed.) But in this movie Lenny is not at all a sympathetic character while his wife certainly is. There are some really intense scenes in this movie. Sometimes uncomfortably so. I guess this was one of the first "Dramedy" movies before that term was even invented.Anyway, there is one classic scene in this film that's absolutely worth the price of admission. Eddie Albert earns his Oscar nomination without saying a single word, doing the Slow Burn to end all Slow Burns, while Lenny "lays his cards on the table".

Petri Pelkonen Lenny Cantrow and Lila Kolodny are a newlywed Jewish couple.During their honeymoon in Florida he meets this tall blonde, Kelly, and realizes he's made a terrible mistake.Now he wants to have an instant divorce and get together with this attractive gentile.Another problem is the girl's father who can't stand this guy.Elaine May, the former sidekick of Mike Nichols is the director of The Heartbreak Kid (1972).Its writers are Bruce Jay Friedman (story) and Neil Simon (screenplay).What a wonderful and funny comedy this is! Charles Grodin does a performance of a lifetime as Lenny.Same thing with Jeannie Berlin as Lila, who's Elaine May's daughter.Cybill Shepherd portrays Kelly Corcoran in a memorable way.And so does Eddie Albert as her father.Audra Lindley is wonderful as her mother.Doris Roberts does a small role as Mrs.Cantrow.Grodin's character is somewhat likable even though he acts like a real jerk.You can't help but feel sorry for this man.I mean, this gorgeous college girl wants him! But still, what he does is wrong.Leaving his wife, his beautiful and sweet wife like that is just wrong.But in the last image of the film you can see some kind of regret on the man's face.He's just married Kelly and he starts humming Close To You, that was played on his wedding with Lila.This movie made me laugh several times.Like the time Lenny lays out all his cards for Kelly's dad wanting to marry his daughter.Guess twice how the old man feels about that.The Heartbreak Kid is a real treat.Everybody should see it.