John Candy was without a doubt one of the most gifted comedic actors of his generation giving entertaining performances in movies like "Planes, Trains, and Automobiles", "Uncle Buck", and a few others but here in this movie he plays a romantic lead but not without some of his classic comedy trademarks that made him so loved in Hollywood in the first place. Candy plays Danny Muldoon a Chicago police officer who lives with his mother Rose (Maureen O'Hara) who is extremely protective of him and still treats him like a child instead of letting him make his own decisions in life. Every day for Danny is working his police job with his partner (Jim Belushi) and when the working day is done he and his mother go to the bar with some older friends of hers named Doyle (Milo O'Shea) and Spats (Bert Remsen), and then one of them dies which I will not reveal who. Then the scenes in the funeral parlor is where the movie really starts to get interesting as Danny sneaks behind to the back where he sees a beautiful young woman named Theresa (Ally Sheedy) who is a funeral makeup artist that is very shy when they first meet but gradually fall in love as the movie progresses. But there is only one stumbling block in their relationship which is his mother who literally embarrasses her on their first date because of her lack of a filter as well as the fact that Danny can't stop worrying about her because he's been living with her so long and always worries about her safety which causes her to leave him more than once and have an extremely complicate relationship and as with all romantic comedies and romance movies in general the guy always gets the girl in the end. The movie was written and directed by Chris Columbus who also directed the 90's comedy classics "Home Alone" (1990) and "Mrs. Doubtfire" (1993) and was produced by John Hughes who made some of the 80's finest comedies. The most important thing in any romantic movie is the chemistry between the two lovers which is completely nailed by Candy and Sheedy in this movie which really impressed me because Candy showed more sensitivity to himself as an actor that people really didn't get an extended glimpse of until this movie came out. The supporting performances are also stellar with Maureen O'Hara(in what would be her final feature film) really knocks it out of the park as a controlling mother, Kevin Dunn as Dann'y lawyer brother, as well as Anthony Quinn as their neighbor that happens to have a crush on O'Hara's character. The movie is a total gem for romance movies in general, and is very much worth your time if you haven't seen it yet
Review of Only the Lonely
