My favorite genre: middlebrow mid budget “adult” dramadies from the late 70s through the late 80s, pseudo-sophisticated about life sex and love. Their sitcom fake humanism is still superior to most current product.
Isabella is lovely. William Peterson is still in his To Live and Die/Manhunter peak, and has some really good fits here too. Ted Danson plays a trumpet in a few scenes and fakes it very badly… zero effort there.
The fact that I’m basically the only person willing to go to the five star mat for this superlative middlebrow weepie is an indictment of Letterboxd, and of the world.
Brickman and Benedek chart a pleasing, all but uncharted course between European art film and Hollywood tearjerker. It may seem neither fish nor fowl to some eyes— too synthetic and emotionally tidy for art movie lovers, too understated for the mainstream. Or maybe it was just one of the first…
