The Talkies/In Woody's Shadow

...And yet the very pretty and fastidious Sally Albright (Meg Ryan), who meets him three times over the course of ten years and who at first finds him unbearable, ends up head over heels...

...They have problems, yes, but they're not terrible problems—no terminal illnesses, no teenagers hooked on crack—and virtually all are resolved by the end of the movie, in some cases quite improbably...

...But how is he with adults...

...The settings here are vintage Allen: Central Park, the Metropolitan Museum, a bookstore...

...Like Hannah, it's a family portrait—an alternately funny and poignant story of the ups and downs, over a period of a couple of years, in the life of an extended American family of the '80s...

...Howard and his scriptwriters could have taken a lesson from Woody Allen: compare the final moments of Parenthood to the closing dinner-party sequence in Hannah (especially the very last part, when Allen and Wiest talk before a mirror...

...Even Harry's best friend, Jess (Bruno Kirby), and Sally's best friend, Marie (Carrie Fisher), are stubbornly one-dimensional (though the actors do their best to breathe life into them...

...Ugh...

...It's one of those ending endings, which ties up too many story lines too quickly, too glibly, and by Bruce Bawer too improbably for comfort...

...It seems incredible...

...Not that Buckman pere wasn't a decent guy...

...And whereas Allen focused on love and romance—both within and outside of marriage—Howard's emphasis is on parents and their children...

...T he whole contraption, in fact, feels synthetic...

...That's not the only musical echo...

...As for Larry, the solitary exception to the rule of family niceness, he's a classic black sheep, a stereotype in every way (and a too-neat contrast to Gil), whose continuing ability to charm the pants off his dad isn't quite believable...

...For all this, the film's a hell of a lot less synthetic-feeling than, say, Terms of Endearment...

...We're told that Harry's a political consultant and that Sally's a Daily News reporter, but we don't see either of them at work...

...What's more, Harry and Sally have so many diametrically opposite personality traits—all of them blatantly spelled out in the film's opening scenes—that they can't possibly seem anything but false: he's passionate, she's practical...

...Best last line of a movie ever," he says, as if it weren't the received opinion on the subject...

...On the contrary, it demonstrates that Reiner still has a thing for Woody Allen, that his view of adult relationships is no more sophisticated than it was when he made More Than Friends, and that he might be better off sticking to kid stories...

...Yet think about it for a minute, and it begins to make sense: any woman who married Carl Bernstein would find Harry Burns appealing...

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...From the opening credits, Reiner cuts to a Diane Arbus-like two-shot of an elderly couple, who face the camera and tell us how they met...

...It was called More Than Friends and it owed a great deal to Annie Hall, which had come out only a year or so earlier...

...I mean, this is a big family composed almost entirely of really nice people...

...Both sequences have similar purposes, but Allen's is wittier, subtler, and far more effective (which is to say, far more affecting...

...s for Rob Reiner, I'd advise him to shake off Woody Allen altogether...

...Reiner went on, of course, to make some of the most winsome movies of the past few years—the first (This Is Spinal Tap) a side-splitting fake "rockumentary" about a crummy rock-and-roll band on tour, the second (Stand By Me) a poignant story about the friendship of four pubescent small-town boys, the third (The Princess Bride) a charming comedy-fantasy about storybook lovers, villains, and pirates...

...Why waste money on directory assistance...

...But the acting and dialogue are mainstream yuppie: when Sally meets Harry in Shakespeare & Co., he's in the Personal Growth section...

...The difference is that whereas Allen used "Strike Up the Band" for the spirit and "But Not For Me" for the subdued follow-up, Reiner plays a weird, peppy arrangement of "But Not For Me" under the run: for anyone who knows the song, it's a disconcerting choice...

...and the boy who plays Kevin—a big and difficult role, which calls for all sorts of pathetic displays and mood shifts—doesn't make a false move...

...The one really staggering misstep comes at the very ending, which is set in a maternity ward, and which is so inanely, gratuitously sentimental that it would make Frank Capra wince...

...at a time when even better-than-average Hollywood movies often have a slick assembly-line style and point of view, his films have an uncommon quality of character, wit, and gentleness, a pronounced and distinctive humanity...

...It was Reiner, too, who hatched the film's jejune thesis, which is stated by Harry early on: "Men and women can never be friends because 39 the sex part always gets in the way...

...Gil's a loving and attentive father, you see, and it's largely because he's always wanted very much to be a better dad than his own father (Jason Robards, Jr...

...the story of Harry and Sally is said to be based on his experiences after divorcing Penny Marshall, and Ephron felt the character was so close to Reiner that he should play the role himself...

...But whereas Allen gave us a colorful Manhattan clan composed largely of art-world and show-biz types, director Ron Howard and writers Lowell Ganz and Babaloo (yes, Babaloo) Mandel give us a seemingly more ordinary St...

...That's the difference, of course, between Woody Allen and Rob Reiner: when a Woody Allen character says he thinks a lot about death, you know he does...

...ether that, or developing an interest .L/ in adults who act more like adults...

...at the museum, he hangs around the Temple of Dendur with her and does bad shtick: "I have a theory that Egyptian hieroglyphics are really an ancient comic strip about a character named Sphinxie...

...he thinks a lot about death, she doesn't...

...who believes firmly that what every man thinks, after intercourse, is "How long do I have to lie here and hold her before I can get up and go home...

...Reiner reportedly had a big hand in shaping the script...

...he encumbered Stand By Me with an unnecessary nostalgic voice-over by Richard Dreyfuss...

...maybe Reiner and his scriptwriter, Nora Ephron, felt this gimmick would make the story of Harry and Sally seem more real, more universal...

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...This is, to be sure, a hard sort of film to find an ending for: it's a character piece, crowded with stories but lacking in a dominant plot line, and there's no ideal, natural conclusion to such a picture...

...Wiest is splendid too, as ever, though she sometimes seems to be reprising her role in Hannah and Her Sisters...

...Harry says with his usual charm...

...But given the hundreds of standard ballads by Gershwin, Arlen, Rodgers, et al., to choose from, why did Reiner pick these...

...he admires the man's work...

...Sold to: Ship to: Address: Address: Phone: Phone: Price Each Card Card Number: Exp...

...Music is, in fact, employed quite crudely here: if, in Hannah, Allen delicately underlined the seasonal changes by means of music and atmospheric shots, Reiner hits us over the head with songs like "Autumn In New York" and "Winter Wonderland" and with postcard views of (among other things) the Rockefeller Center Christmas tree...

...Yech...

...THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR OCTOBER 1989...

...was...

...For myself, if I ever watch Parenthood on videotape, I'll turn the TV off after the charming and funny penultimate sequence (set at a school play), which does all the summing-up required, and which Howard would have been well advised to end with...

...Partly, I'm sure, for the same reason that Allen, in his weaker films (e.g., Interiors), goes overboard emulating Bergman...

...Besides, Ephron didn't work alone...

...Why does Reiner imitate Woody Allen so slavishly...

...Great...

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...T here's one further curious facet of .1 this film that needs to be mentioned...

...Yet his performance suggests that, however serious an actor he becomes, he'll never make the mistake of entirely submerging his comic self, the way Mary Tyler Moore and Carol Burnett seem to think they have to do when giving Serious Performances...

...he's sloppy, she's neat (he calls her "Miss Hospital Corners...

...One can only hope that, in films to come, Reiner will cultivate his own distinctive manner of looking at grown-up life and love—or else will find his way back to the sort of movie he's made with such splendid proficiency in the past...

...Watching him agonize so convincingly over his son's emotional problems makes it hard to believe that this is the man who used to dance on "Saturday Night Live" with an arrow through his head...

...But he seemed not to understand that these elements had no intrinsic significance, that they were just manifestations of Woody Allen's sensibility, his singular way of looking at life and love...

...You'd bet your life that a man wrote this script—a man very much like Harry, naturally...

...loveless, stubborn, and neurotic, her character here is as touchingly sincere and as comically maladroit at motherhood as her counterpart in Hannah was at relationships...

...The soundtrack contains several songs Allen has used: "It Had To Be You" (from Annie Hall), "Our Love Is Here To Stay" as well as "But Not For Me" (Manhattan), "Isn't It Romantic" and "Where or When" (Hannah...

...As it works out, however, he's just obnoxious...

...Louis San Diego San Francisco Seattle Washington D.C...

...And toward the end of the movie, just as in Manhattan, our hero, suddenly realizing how much he loves our heroine, sprints across town while a bouncy Gershwin tune plays on the soundtrack, and winds up in a doorway, facing her, breathing heavily...

...tion foreman and she a ballerina...

...he'll sleep with any woman that's breathing, she won't go to bed with a man she doesn't love...

...T ndeed, the acting is so marvelously 1. effective, on the whole, that it takes a while to realize how bogus the whole thing is...

...Like Howard, moreover (and like his ex-wife and More Than Friends co-star Penny Marshall, who directed last year's Big), Reiner has proven himself especially good with children...

...Restaurants, shopping, nightlife, emergency services, museums, theaters, and much more --- organized in the perfect Rolodex file...

...Hard to say...

...This thesis notwithstanding, however, Harry and Sally do become friends after meeting for the third time...

...he prefers younger son Larry (Tom Hulce), an ever-broke, never-employed nomad who's fond of getrich-quick schemes and who, after several years' absence, shows up at a family gathering with a seven-year-old mulatto son named Cool...

...At its core, that early effort of Reiner's was fake, empty—a collection of meaningless gestures...

...But you don't buy it for a minute: there's not enough chemistry between these two to make a friend40 Qty Throw Away The Phone Book...

...When Harry says he thinks a lot about death, you know that Rob Reiner thinks a lot about Woody Allen...

...They have very lovely homes, good jobs, and plenty of time for the kids...

...Could a woman really have created such an odious romantic hero...

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...who is constantly turning to his girlfriend and saying things like "I had a dream—we're making love and the Olympic judges are watching...

...And does he ever...

...and who informs her that "there are two kinds of women, high maintenance and low mainteTHE AMERICAN SPECTATOR OCTOBER 1989 nance," and that she's the former...

...Indeed, the Buckmans have so many parent-child problems to deal with that you may need a scorecard to keep it all straight...

...it's just that he's a fun-loving type who never got the hang of fatherhood...

...indeed, at certain points in THE TALKIES Parenthood, Martin makes excellent and altogether fitting raids on his comic bag of tricks...

...And if it's contrived in its broad outlines, it's authentic in many of its particulars...

...Bruce Bawer is The American Spectator's movie reviewer...

...Louis family called the Buckman...

...More than a decade ago—back when we all still thought of him as the Meathead on "All in the Family" (and, by the way, when Ron Howard was still Richie Cunningham on "Happy Days")—Reiner wrote, directed, and starred in one of the worst TV movies of all time...

...For Harry Burns (Billy Crystal), the hero of Reiner's new film, is the most juvenile of men...

...Or at least he says he thinks a lot about death, though nothing in his behavior suggests it...

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...Certainly it wasn't a matter of their being just the right tunes for his purposes...

...Go figure...

...Steenburgen and Reeves (who appeared previously in River's Edge) are also especially fine...

...its unrelenting mawkishness betrays the whole tone of the film, whose saving grace is that it doesn't lean on its emotion and consistently leavens sentiment with humor...

...They're the first of several such couples who appear at intervals in the film, all telling us similar stories...

...We look forward to hearing from you...

...Reiner borrowed with great care but little understanding: he appropriated a plot point here, a detail of character there, and emphasized the THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR OCTOBER 1989 metropolitan mice en scene in a big way...

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...When Harry Met Sally . . . is Reiner's first feature film that's exclusively for and about grown-ups, and it doesn't say much for Reiner's abilities in this line...

...For all the difference that it makes, he might be a construePittsburgh St...

...There's more...

...Add to this Gil's mom, his grandma, and assorted others, and it's amazing that you can even remember who's who, let alone care about any of them...

...Meanwhile, Gil's younger sister, a schoolteacher named Susan, has an overzealous Yuppie husband, Nathan (Rick Moranis), who insists on teaching advanced subjects to their toddler daughter, Patty, so that she'll gain a competitive edge on her future classmates...

...most of them seem almost arbitrarily assigned to their respective scenes...

...he seems to respect them, to care about them, to understand the way their minds operate...

...They don't even talk about work...

...It is currently available for 22 cities: Atlanta Baltimore Boston Chicago Cleveland Dallas Denver Houston City Credit Card Info: Name Los Angeles Miami Minneapolis New York Orange County Peninsula (San Jose) Philadelphia Phoenix ship seem likely, let alone a love affair...

...But the one Ganz and Mandel have come up with is all wrong...

...But one also has the feeling that Reiner, so comfortable in the realm of storybook fantasy, farce, and boyhood, is ill at ease in the territory of this film—adult romance—and, like a smart but un-self-confident kid copying a book report out of an encyclopedia, felt a need to lean strongly on a recognized authority...

...Thanks...

...he's into munchies, she won't eat between meals...

...We don't know anything about their families or upbringing, and their friends, ex-spouses, and other lovers are little more than stick-figure plot functionaries...

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...Steve Martin, in particular, is remarkable—hilarious one moment, tender the next, and always consistent, credible, and perfectly modulated...

...When you see a proposition like this being taken seriously by a scriptwriter, you know you're in trouble...

...It's the sort of performance that only a very sensitive director could get out of a kid (and doubtless Howard's own experience as a child actor made a difference here, too...

...Got that...

...Gil's divorced sister (Dianne Wiest) is the mother of two troubled youths—an intractable pubescent named Gary, who rents porno movies and keeps a padlock on his bedroom door, and a bright high-schooler named Julie (Martha Plimpton) who insists on consorting with an immature lad named Tod (Keanu Reeves...

...and he almost sank The Princess Bride by interpolating several action-stalling scenes in which Peter Falk—as an old man reading the story to his grandson—answered the child's comments...

...And sensibility was precisely what More Than Friends lacked—that, and a feel for the New York streets on which the film was set...

...The acting has a lot to do with it...

...38 Besides, he's always found Gil a bit of a square...

...But you'd be wrong: it's by Nora Ephron, the author of Heartburn and ex-wife of Carl Bernstein...

...Or maybe they were making parodic references to the intercalated bits in Reds, wherein a host of oldsters reminisced about the real John Reed and Louise Bryant...

...No other new director of this decade has created a more solid and respectable body of work...

...and the picture that it offers of perfect family harmony and of difficulties overcome by love and patience contradicts the whole point of the movie—namely, that family life is by its nature fraught with predicaments which have no easy solutions...

...Why waste time turning pages in the phone book...

...Or maybe Reiner is just addicted to structural clutter: he burdened Spinal Tap with a gratuitous introductory segment starring himself as the "rockumentary's" producer...

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...But you do care about them—some of them, anyway...

...He's the sort whose life with males revolves around sports and whose life with females revolves around sex...

...fry to follow this: businessman Gil (Steve Martin) and his wife, Karen (Mary Steenburgen), have three kids, including a nine-year-old son, Kevin, who's so high-strung that he needs psychiatric treatment...

...In Annie Hall, Allen cut from the credits to a similar close-up of himself...

...Yes, they're all wonderful songs, and, yes, it's satisfying to see a new movie whose score doesn't consist of the hideous discords of some top-40 rock group...

...Like Allen and Mariel Hemingway in Manhattan, they lie in bed and watch Casablanca together...

...The idea here, obviously, is that Harry's supposed to be obnoxious yet brashly appealing...