By Richard Winters
My Rating: 5 out of 10
4-Word Review: Dealing with divorcing parents.
Franny (Trini Alvarado) is a 12-year-old who’s learning that her two parents (Jon Lithgow, Kathryn Walker) are getting a divorce. She is unhappy about this and thus turns to her friend Jamie (Jeremy Levy) whose parents also went through a divorce a couple of years earlier. He gives her guidance and tips on how to deal with it. She turns to him as a confidant and begins spending time with him at his place even overnights. Her parents are under the impression that Jamie’s father (Terry Kiser) is keeping a watchful eye on them, but in reality he’s over at his new girlfriend’s pad and not paying the least bit of attention to what the kids are doing who then get into all sorts of mischief including alcohol. Once Franny’s parents do catch-on and head over there along with Jamie’s mother and her new husband (Roberta Maxwell, Paul Dooley) they fear it may be too late especially after Franny’s mother finds the book ‘The Joy of Sex’ that her daughter had hidden away and been reading.
On the surface this film, which was produced by Robert Altman, should’ve been a winner and on the technical end it does everything right. The color schemes and docu-drama approach gives it a vivid day-in-the-life vibe and captures growing up on the Upper West Side neighborhood quite well to the extent that you feel like you’ve visited the area yourself once the film is over. The acting, particularly Alvarado in her film debut, is terrific though kudos must also go to Lithgow and Walker whose portrayal of fraught parents trying to shield their child from life’s ugly realities while also still attempting to be upfront and honest with her is well done. Director Robert M. Young shows a good eye for detail and keeps things visually interesting particularly when they go to Jamie’s dad’s place and interact with the exotic pets he has and make goofy faces with his bedroom full of wall mirrors on every side, which I felt was the movie’s highlight.
Story-wise there are a few profound moments and everything that occurs rings true, but in the process it’s not particularly riveting either. I sat through the whole thing expecting at some point to be grabbed in and it just never occurred. Part of the issue is that it takes too much of a minimalistic approach. So much effort is put in to keeping it realistic that nothing every stands-out. It’s like one of those 70’s after school specials that gets stretched out to 2-hours length, but could’ve easily said what it wanted to in only half that time. It’s all pleasantly done, but ultimately rather meh.
I didn’t like the sex difference of the two kids as it made me cringe all the way through fearing that even at age 12 things might start to get a little kinky like they’d play a game of ‘doctor’, or get drunk, which they kind of do, and dare each other to take their clothes off. It seemed at that age children still like playing with members of their own sex and are quite clicky about it and don’t really begin to reach out to the other side until maybe 14 or 15, so it would’ve been more believable if Jaimie had been a girl instead of a boy.
The title is a bit confusing as these really aren’t wealthy families sure they aren’t poor, but there’s nothing about their lifestyles or home life that isn’t of the middle-class variety making it misleading to have the word ‘rich’ in there. The promotional poster is awful too as the drawings don’t look anything like the real stars and depicts the two leads like they’re dorky looking, which they really aren’t. It also gives one the impression this might be an animated feature, which it certainly isn’t. Actual picks of the two stars would’ve been better especially since Alvarado has such expressive blue eyes, photogenic face, and wonderfully natural smile that one shouldn’t pass-up the opportunity to have her sweat face plastered on the promotional materials whenever possible.
My Rating: 5 out of 10
Released: August 17, 1979
Runtime: 1 Hour 41 Minutes
Rated PG
Director: Robert M. Young
Studio: United Artists
Available: DVD
Scopophilia 