By Richard Winters
My Rating: 3 out of 10
4-Word Review: Heartbreak in the city.
Sheila Levine (Jeannie Berlin) is a recent college grad who moves to New York City in search of a more exciting and glamorous lifestyle, but finds a long line of heartbreak and empty opportunities instead. When her younger sister gets married before she does she becomes jealous, but refuses to give up and continues to strive to make her mark no matter how small it might be.
Based on the Gail Parent novel the film manages to hit a few marks. Her nagging mother and the exchange that she has with a job placement coordinator at an employment agency is good. However, the idea that a woman’s sole purpose in life is to get married and then not have to work afterwards is seriously dated and will not connect with today’s viewers.
The main character isn’t exactly likable either. She is bossy and intrusive with her roommate and seems to think that because she is a college grad that should entitle her to only ‘creative’ and interesting jobs that doesn’t involve typing. She is also strangely naïve as she gets picked up by a middle-aged man (Roy Scheider) at a bar, goes back to his place for sex and then somehow thinks that means he is in love with her and is genuinely shocked when he bluntly tells her that he was simply appeasing his ‘animalistic instincts’. We are supposed to feel sorry for her, but instead it’s more fun seeing her get slapped down.
Berlin is the daughter of Elaine May who was the queen of sardonic humor and I came into this thing with high hopes, but her performance is only so-so. She does indeed look very Jewish and the perfect composite of the Rhoda Morgenstern TV character and a young Joan Rivers. However, her incessant whiny and nasally voice may be too much for some.
Scheider manages to be pretty solid. I was never impressed with his acting range, but here he gives quite possibly his best performance in what is most likely his least known role.Sidney J. Furie’s lifeless direction though makes the production come off like a filmed stage play with scenes that seem to go on forever.
Michel Legrand’s melodic orchestral score is out-of-place and better suited for a romance. There is also a song with a funky 70’s sound that gets played at regular intervals and becomes increasingly annoying.
I was expecting this to be a quirky, dry humored comedy, but found it to be more of a stilted drama that relied too much on the obvious and at times became almost painful to watch. The romantic angle between Scheider and Berlin is unbelievable and ultimately quite corny, which impedes the film from achieving any type of true potential.
My Rating: 3 out of 10
Released: May 16, 1975
Runtime: 1Hour 52Minutes
Rated PG
Director: Sidney J. Furie
Studio: Paramount
Available: YouTube
Scopophilia 