That Old Feeling
Director: Carl Reiner
Starring: Bette Midler, Dennis Farine, Paula Marshall, Gail O'Grady,
David Rasche, Jamie Denton and Danny Nucci.
I will confess up front that I am a fan of Ms. Bette Midler. I
believe that Ms. Midler has an energy and enthusiasm that comes across
on screen and is contagious. As such, I went in to this movie wanting
to like it.
It had good advanced word of mouth, too. People talked of the great
casting of Mr. Dennis Farina against type, of the vivacious
performance of Ms. Midler, of the fact that Mr. Carl Reiner was the
director. Were my expectations happily realised or was I sadly
disappointed? Read on, Movie Goer.
Ms. Midler does give a good performance which has moments of
brilliance and moments of just too darn much. In her opening scene
with the photographer, the antics were overdone and annoying; at the
reception when she encounters the father of the groom, she is
superb. She plays a character which we've seen from her before:
flamboyant, loud, abrasive.
If Ms. Midler is cast with type then Mr. Farina is certainly cast
against type and it's noticeable. The
fact that so many reviewers commented on it suggests to me that I am
not the only one who noticed it. This jarred. Whilst he carried out
his scenes quite competently, the whole time I watched him I felt he
was in the wrong movie, that he had somehow got caught up in
Ms. Midler's entourage and been swept on to the wrong set.
Speaking of the wrong movie, Ms. Paula Marshall (Molly) and Mr. Danny
Nucci (Joey) were
clearly in the wrong one. Both do a reasonable job with the roles of
the real people, the protagonists with whom our sympathies are meant
to lie. Everyone else in the movie, however, is a caricature rather
than an actual person. Ms. Midler's and Mr. Farina's
characters were very cold blooded and unfeeling, while the three
significant others were stereotypes. These were not people with whom
we were meant to empathise: these were people we were supposed to
laugh at. Hence we were in a broad comedy. But when the movie
focused on Molly and Joey we were in some sore of romantic movie. A
romantic comedy, you suggest? Perhaps but the contrast was too great
and Ms. Midler's and Mr. Farina's characters were much to nasty to be
the semi-good guys in a romantic comedy.
If we ignore Molly and Joey and concentrate on the broad comedy angle,
the movie fell short of the mark in one major way: there weren't
nearly enough
zingy one-liners. We have an amusing set-up, zany characters
doing outrageous things but the dialogue let us down. So many times I
was wanting to laugh, only to have the scene fizzle. This movie was
crying out for crackling dialogue, for lines that afterwards you
could say to your friends "What about when she said...," "or when he
said..." But no. We are left with a pleasant enough movie about
caricatures in a slightly interesting situation. A mild
disappointment.
Rating: P
© Nikki Lesley 1997