bch@mcnc.UUCP (Byron Howes) (12/12/84)
- - - mod.movies - - - - - - Volume 1, Issue 13 - - -
"Falling in Love"
reviewed by Peter Reiher
I can't characterize "Falling in Love" as a surprise, but none the
less it is a disappointment. Somehow, I never thought that it would
come together well, despite all of the high powered talent involved.
Still, it is too bad that so many talented people wasted so much of
their time on such a trifling movie.
"Falling in Love" tells the rather thin story of two people who
fall in love as a result of a series of encounters on a commuter
train. Both are already married. Robert De Niro plays a builder (or
maybe an architect, it isn't made completely clear) with a wife and two
children. Meryl Streep is a commercial artist who comes into New York
to visit her father in the hospital. After a series of near misses,
the two meet. Neither can quite forget the other, and their subsequent
meetings confirm that they are indeed falling in love, just like the
title says. Eventually they must decide whether to give up their
marriages for each other.
The only thing that could really qualify as a subplot is a
desultory bit of business with the worsening condition of Streep's
father, but this isn't stressed at all. Therefore, the film rises or
falls on how interesting the central love affair is. Unfortunately, it
is far from fascinating. De Niro and Streep do not have very
interesting characters. In part this is due to Michael Christofer's
script, but the actors must share the blame. Both De Niro and Streep
seem to be strongest when playing characters with peculiarities. De
Niro was fascinating in "Taxi Driver" and "Raging Bull", and Streep was
excellent in "Sophie's Choice" and "The French Lieutenant's Woman".
Faced with roles without strong moments and good hooks, they seem lost,
though. Streep comes up with a mad scene at her father's funeral which
is entirely out of place, but otherwise the characters are very dull.
Just as there is no plot support to the central theme, so there is
little character support. Harvey Keitel is OK as De Niro's best
friend, and Diane West is moderately interesting as Streep's best
friend (a little odd that each has an allocation of exactly one friend,
but that's Hollywood). In the final analysis, though, they have little
to do but listen to the stars talk about each other and provide sketchy
glances at alternate lifestyles. The spouses are also underwritten, as
is Streep's father, and those are really all the characters there are.
"Falling in Love" has a few good moments, mostly based on the wit
of the script. Christofer has failed to provide the Christmas tree,
but at least he brought the tinsel. There is a good scene early in the
picture in which De Niro and Streep, unaware of each other's presence,
make calls home from adjacent phone booths; their conversations begin
to sound almost linked as they go through the cliches of talking to
your spouse on the telephone. Ultimately, despite a few good scenes,
tedium prevails. Like me, you are likely to find your mind wandering
as leisurely, unimportant scenes plod across the screen.
Director Ulu Grosbard ("True Confessions") gets no plaudits for
"Falling in Love", either. The film would be about twice as good if it
were paced twice as fast. "Falling in Love" is lugubrious and
labored. Grosbard shows little imagination in the presentation of the
love affair. In fact, the only innovation is that the lovers do not go
to bed together. There may be a film, probably a comedy, maybe a
tragedy, in continually frustrated lovers, but Christofer and Grossbard
make relatively little of it here. The cinematography is strangely
cold and sculptured. A warmer, more golden feeling might have been
better in keeping with a love story. Considering the stars'
backgrounds, anything which speaks of portending disaster, as this
photography does, is probably a mistake in a film which seeks to be
fairly light.
"Falling in Love" isn't worth seeing. That's what it amounts to.
The film is professionally made, of course, and no one makes a fool of
himself (or herself, either). I can't picture anyone caring about this
film, though, or being moved by it. If it shows up on cable on an
otherwise slow night, you might want to take the effort to turn the TV
on. Further effort, though, will be unrewarded.
--
Peter Reiher
reiher@ucla-cs.arpa
{...ihnp4,ucbvax,sdcrdcf}!ucla-cs!reiher