By Richard Winters
My Rating: 5 out of 10
4-Word Review: Two women get pregnant
Rob (Dudley Moore) is a man who becomes increasingly isolated from his wife Micki (Ann Reinking) after she gets too caught up in her career to have time for him. To compensate he begins an affair with an attractive younger woman named Maude (Amy Irving). He plans on divorcing his wife and marrying her, but then they both become pregnant at the same time.
The plot progresses much too slowly and it takes almost fifty minutes before there is any real comedy. It seems hard to believe that a man, by his own admission, could spend ten hours a day with one woman another ten with the other and still be able to hold down a full time job without it all unraveling on him a lot sooner than it does. Moore also doesn’t play the part in a realistic way he should be more stressed out and frantic and on the verge of a complete mental and physical breakdown, but instead he seems very cool and collected most of the time. The script also doesn’t capitalize enough on the many crazy complications that would most assuredly ensue in a situation like this one and the ones it does bring up are not real believable or funny. The climactic delivery room scene becomes way too overblown.
On the positive end Ann Reinking clearly comes off as the better actress than her counterpart, at least in this production. Her character has some amusing flaws while Irving is just too boringly normal. Her only good moment comes with an amusing line that she says during the delivery room scene. Richard Mulligan is good in support and some of his lines are real gems! There is also a completely unexpected and very funny scene between overweight actress Lu Leonard and Wallace Shawn that may very well be the best moment in the whole movie.
The concept is good and it should have been ripe for hilarity, but it doesn’t live up to its full potential. If there is one film that should be remade it is this one. There is a lot more comedy that could be squeezed out of a storyline like this one.
My Rating: 5 out of 10
Released: December 21, 1984
Runtime: 1Hour 58Minutes
Rated PG-13
Director: Blake Edwards
Studio: Columbia Pictures
Available: VHS, DVD, Amazon Instant Video
Scopophilia 