Love will find a way. On the busy weekday morning Metro North or those busy Manhattan streets at Christmas time. Not a homeless person in sight, nor anyone walking down the crowded streets at a slow pace reading their phone. It's a New York City not seen in decades, filled with a bouncy piano background score by Dave Grusin and reuniting the stars of "The Deer Hunter", Meryl Streep without any accent and Robert DeNiro without a trace of temper. Toss in Dianne Wiest and Harvey Keitel as their friends encouraging them to go for it and Jane Kaczmarek and David Clennon as the trusting spouses, and the temptation becomes real, with awkward conversations that sound real, a few seeming a bit forced, and you've got a typical star studded romantic drama that didn't quite break box office records or get awards, but 40 years later is a pleasant distraction, the type of movie they don't make any more, especially the two stars who rarely do films where the word Oscar doesn't pop up next to their names as a suggested hint.
I really enjoyed the New York City location scenes as well as those of DeNiro and Streep on the Metro-North. The streets of Manhattan at Christmas, going from the Rockefeller Center Christmas tree to Macy's to off the beat and path bookstores is a not realistic hint of what they probably were as everybody is dealing with the crowds as if they love them, everybody in good moods, especially Streep as she orders a hot dog from a street vendor. I doubt people were as open to talking to strangers on the street or on a train as Streep and De Niro do in this, but seeing it through the eyes as a parallel time New York City is fascinating. How can you dismiss a film with this mood and all of these niceties? The film is quite dated in many ways, but in reflecting on how movies of the '80s were, it certainly is a world that I would have loved to have seen, one filled with hope even if the thoughts of having an extramarital affair when the spouses are loyal does seem morally ambiguous. The subtle performances by the leads who are now legendary truly make for a unique light drama, something that probably today would be pushed onto cable TV with lesser stars with half the charisma.
I really enjoyed the New York City location scenes as well as those of DeNiro and Streep on the Metro-North. The streets of Manhattan at Christmas, going from the Rockefeller Center Christmas tree to Macy's to off the beat and path bookstores is a not realistic hint of what they probably were as everybody is dealing with the crowds as if they love them, everybody in good moods, especially Streep as she orders a hot dog from a street vendor. I doubt people were as open to talking to strangers on the street or on a train as Streep and De Niro do in this, but seeing it through the eyes as a parallel time New York City is fascinating. How can you dismiss a film with this mood and all of these niceties? The film is quite dated in many ways, but in reflecting on how movies of the '80s were, it certainly is a world that I would have loved to have seen, one filled with hope even if the thoughts of having an extramarital affair when the spouses are loyal does seem morally ambiguous. The subtle performances by the leads who are now legendary truly make for a unique light drama, something that probably today would be pushed onto cable TV with lesser stars with half the charisma.