I was give the film on DVD as a free gift with another purchase, I had never heard of this film, and to be honest it is not one I would choose to watch, but I thought I'd give it a go anyway before getting rid of it, from director Irvin Kershner (Star Wars: Episode V - The Empire Strikes Back, Never Say Never Again, RoboCop 2). Basically young wife and mother Margaret Reynolds (Barbra Streisand) is seriously bored of her day to day life in New York and feeling rejected by her husband Paul (David Selby), who for the majority is out working. To get her through her boredom she has constant and increasingly outrageous and bizarre fantasies and daydreams of various unrelated incidents, including her mother Elizabeth (Ariane Heller) breaking into the apartment, and visiting a tribal ceremony based on fertility and having a musical party where strange transformations occur. There also Margaret having a relationship with Cuban communist politician Fidel Castro (Jacobo Morales), and perhaps the most surreal daydream is her joining a gang of terrorists who are setting up explosives and blowing up the Statue of Liberty. There are a few scenes where Paul tries to make it up Margaret and their children, but he cannot escape his business ethic, and it is obvious Margaret longs to escape and experience a new and perhaps better life than they have now, but in the end there is some kind of resolution. Also starring Jane Hoffman as Mrs. Koerner, John C. Becher as Mr. Koerner, Terry Smith as Peter, Gary Smith as Peter and Paul Benedict as Dr. Beineke. Streisand I suppose gives a good likable performance if a little kooky like we are used to with her past films, the story of a bored mother is fine, but I the mixing of the normal domestic home life with the surreal dream sequences I found just too weird and confusing, it was hard to differentiate between the two, and I didn't find myself laughing all that much either, maybe just titters, so it is definitely not a comedy film I would watch again. Adequate!
Review of Up the Sandbox
