| The
Review: |
"Falling in Love" gives new meaning
to the word pathetic, with its treacly love story involving
two completely boring losers who find that marriage just isn't
what they want out of life anymore. And yet, why is it that
in these types of movies, people like this always feel they
have to cheat on their spouse, rather than just cut loose
entirely? And why, why oh why, do the filmmakers feel it is
their sworn duty to milk every ounce of emotion out of the
audience for such repulsive, irrational people?
The story begins in the "one fateful
day" mode, as two last-minute Christmas shoppers bump into
one another when they both exit a bookstore. He is Frank Raftis
(Robert De Niro), an architect with a wife and two young boys;
she is Molly Gilmore (Meryl Streep), the wife of a doctor
whose father is in poor health but high spirits (like it really
does anything for the story that we know her father at all).
They greet one another, each wishing the other well, but common
sense tells us they will meet again (you gotta love being
right all the time). After an accidental switching of intended
gifts brings them back together again, they start getting
to know one another, sharing the train back into the city
after he works and she visits her hospitalized father. Pretty
soon, it gets to the point where each goes out of his or her
way to see the other, leading up to the standard confronting-one's-situation
scene that only brings them closer together. But, when you're
in love, nothing else matters, right?
"Falling in Love" practically falls
to its knees and worships such a philosophy, focusing more
on the adulterous lovers and their wretched adulterous friends,
while completely ignoring the aspects of the family lives
each carries on with. All we know about Frank is that he has
a wife and two kids; Molly, who has no children, has a husband
who, from the looks of his five minutes of onscreen time,
genuinely loves her despite his time away. Where's the strife?
Where's the heartache? What could be so terrible in their
married lives that they feel they just can't bear to be trapped
anymore? The movie would benefit from adding some small measure
of tribulation to these two peoples' lives, rather than generate
it through their grief over their cheating ways. It is for
this reason alone that the story never takes on an enjoyable
quality; if we can't relate to the situation or the mind-numbingly
banal characters, we can't hope to find satisfaction from
the overall film. It's a shame, really, considering the amount
of talent involved.
De Niro and Streep both give it
their all, forcing themselves to play emotional in a series
of ludicrous dialogue exchanges and touchy-feely moments,
but the material does nothing more than waste their time and
ability. As their two best friends, Harvey Keitel and Dianne
Wiest make some appearances, but, again, it amounts to little
other than supporting-character excrement. The only slight
beacon of light rests with David Clennon, who plays Molly's
husband, and Jane Kaczmarek as Frank's wife; in the end, these
two characters are the ones we feel anything for.
You would think that, being made
in 1984, "Falling in Love" would avoid much of the pitfalls
and cloyed storytelling that have become the cliche for movies
of the 90's and new millennium. If you look at it, I guess
it avoids some, but it also creates a couple of its own, along
with some of the most repulsive and unmoving characters in
romantic drama history. Falling in love is hard to do, especially
if it concerns this movie. --
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