A man and woman meet by chance at a romantic inn. Although both are married to others, they find themselves in the same bed the next morning and agree to meet on the same weekend each year. [imdb]Nominated for 4 Oscars:
Best Actress: Ellen Burstyn
Best Adapted Screenplay
Best Cinematography
Best Original Song
I've seen it the first time years ago and it hasn't changed much since then. The film itself is quite dated, based on the movie making process. The cinematography is very 70s and I'm not sure it even worked in 1978, as it gave the image a strange glow.
The dialogue is fine, I'm sure it's a good play and the Adapted Screenplay works better than I remembered. Alan Alda is doing his usual overacting, which kind of works here (is it his best feature film hour?) and Ellen Burstyn is effective, but not great or as good as she could've been (she also won a Tony for the previous stage version). The direction is simple and the film itself falls, for me, in some kind of a middle category. I didn't find huge flaws (except for the image quality), but I wouldn't go crazy for it either and I'll probably never see it again.
My rating for the film: 7/10. I did like the ending and it's quite creative at times... but why was I tempted to go for 7.5?
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On stage the artificialness of the plot and character progression works much better. I'd probably mark it down because the massively extreme fluctuations in their personalities and worldviews don't really make sense, but it's a nice enough film.
ReplyDeleteyou've excelently pointed!
ReplyDeleteBurstyn turning hippie was definitely the weakest moment.