Modern Romance (1981) User Reviews

"Can't live with or without her". Great slowburning comedy, Albert Brooks style.

[imseeg · 8/10 · 24 July 2018]

Some movies get better the more often I see them, because I have more time to enjoy the subtle jokes in the dialogues. Albert Brooks is famous for his dialogues and his whining. I love it, but some might find it tedious and self centered. It is both those things, but the boring self centered behaviour is all done tongue in cheek, like no one else can do it, the funny way Albert Brooks does. He is often referred to as the Californian version of Woody Allen. If you like Allen you hopefully appreciate the same kind of insecure self hatred jokes of Albert Brooks.

What's the story about? Albert Brooks plays a guy who is terribly in love with a woman. But he is terribly jealous as well. He just doesnt trust her. He is afraid of losing her to any hansom guy walking past down the street. Extremely possesive. So he decides to break up with her. But the moment he has broken up, he starts longing for her again. He cant live with her, but he cant live without her either. The jokes about all the little misunderstandings in relationships are to die for.

Nothing happens in this movie. Really slowburning story, but funny as can be, if you dig this kind of tongue in cheek humor ofcourse. This is certainly not a fast straight comedy. The complete opposite. The guy just sits around worrying about his girlfriend having an affair. He sits around at a boring editing job. This endlesly sitting around stuff and the endless thoughts of jealousy are performed brilliantly. Maybe this whining and obsessively worrying will only be really aprreciated by those few who already understand the subtleties of Albert Brooks jokes. But please just give it a shot anyway. If you dont like the first 15 minutes, nothing much will change after that. No problem, you just dont dig this kind of humor. But if you dont try, you might miss out on one of the best slowburning comedies of the entire eighties! I adore the talent of this director and actor Brooks, who can make an entire comedy about nothing else but worrying about his girflriend. Worrying if she is secretly having an affair with complete strangers. An hour and a half full of whining and obsessive worrying. Brilliant, truly brilliant script!

Uneven, but very funny and poignant

[jeremy3 · 8/10 · 21 June 2008]

Albert Brooks character is a likable and despicable person, all at the same time. As a film editor, he is brilliant. He is very deflecting and agreeable, going along and getting along with all his colleagues. There are some hilarious "Hollywood insider" moments between himself and his producer. He is very proud of what editing he has done to make his movie more thought provoking to the audience. However, his producer wants everything totally catered to what he believes the public wants.

In his personal life, he is completely crazy. He breaks up with his lover, because he thinks that's what society wants. He doesn't want to break up with her, but he has to. Quickly, he realizes that he made a mistake, and crazily spends his time trying to win her back. There are some hilarious scenes. He goes to a sporting goods store and ends up spending a fortune on running gear. He goes to a local track and runs ten feet, before running to the nearest phone booth to call his lover. He goes to a thrifty store and buys all these tacky gifts there to win his lover back. Amazingly, it works. He becomes insanely jealous over her meeting at a restaurant with Japanese businessman.

In the end, it is clear that Brooks' character is a man who can't be alone. He is a victim of the romantic notion that lovers have to spend 100% of their time being in love with each other. He is insanely jealous and extremely possessive of his lover. His lover is clearly in great pain and suffering, but he can't let go of her, because that's what society says is demanded of in a modern relationship. The only downside is that the movie is dated. In addition, the movie was a little uneven, and trying to do a lot. However, this can be forgiven, because it is a very good comedy.

A good romantic-comedy with some unique twists on the formula

[Jeremy_Urquhart · 7/10 · 11 March 2021]

Pains me to admit it but I could relate to Albert Brooks' character in parts of this. The swinging back and forth between optimism and despair right after a breakup hit kind of hard. Also: a part late in the film where thin and his sort-of girlfriend sort of argue, and Brooks' character is unable to end it in a way that will leave things fully at peace... that was relatable too.

All that said, the most entertaining parts were probably the sequences where Brooks worked as an editor on what looked like a gloriously stupid sci-fi film starring George Kennedy.

Overall: it's not perfect, and I think it does owe maybe a bit too much to the kind of movies Woody Allen was making around this time. But I did like a good deal of the humour, and a romantic-comedy that investigates the final stages of a relationship is refreshing, considering most standard romantic-comedies focus on the early days.

Albert Brooks at his best

[krumski · 7 February 2000]

This film is not for everyone. If you do not already like Albert Brooks, or are only lukewarm on him, by all means stay away from it. I happen to love Brooks and, hence, this film. But I can understand people getting fed up with it because it's not structured or scripted like a normal movie. The biggest complaint I've heard about it is that all the other characters in it besides Brooks, especially the girlfriend, are mere props for him. That's absolutely true. It's as if Brooks would have preferred to do a long monologue (or a stand-up routine) but then decided at the last minute that he did need people to be present every now and again to bounce things off of. Just so you know what to expect: this is not an "interaction" movie - this is undiluted Albert Brooks coming straight at you for nearly two hours, with all his smarminess, vanity and doggedness firmly in place.

What I love about Brooks, at least in his early movies (i.e. everything before Defending Your Life) is that he is not afraid to totally take upon himself the traits which he means to ridicule. He's often been compared to Woody Allen but I think the differences are important. In all his films, Woody Allen takes himself to task, relentlessly analyzes and criticizes himself, shows us his weaknesses and flaws, etc. - but then undercuts it all by playing for our affection with his cutesy physicality and his meant-to-be-adorable one-liners. Brooks doesn't *want* you to love him, he delights in heaping one annoying trait after another upon himself and portraying it to its full, uncensored extent. He doesn't do one-liners or gags - instead, he embodies the personality of someone who would be the butt of such gags or one-liners, and the embodiment is what is meant to be funny.

For example, in this movie, there is an amazing 15 minute sequence near the beginning where Brooks, having just dumped his girlfriend, putters around his apartment pep talking himself into feeling good and succeeding only in becoming more and more miserable. The delusion and self-absorption on display is monumental, and it's given a kind of grandeur by the amount of time focused upon it - you could almost label the scene "The Narcissist's Aria." It's annoying as hell, and I couldn't blame anyone for being totally turned off by it. And yet, that annoyingness is exactly the point, and what makes the scene so hysterical. Brooks' performance here is nothing short of brilliant - the kind which would surely take home an Academy Award for Best Actor in a Comedy if such a category existed at the Oscars.

Think of Albert Brooks here as George Costanza on "Seinfeld" - only with his monomania squared simply from having no close friends to interact with and bring him down to size. If that seems like torture to you, keep right on moving when you see this one in the video store aisle. However, if you always secretly wondered what George would be like if he got his very own show - well, here's the closest approximation of a pilot episode that you're ever likely to find.

Nothing in common

[AlsExGal · 6/10 · 21 January 2017]

Albert Brooks starred and also co-wrote the script with Monica McGowan Johnson. He plays Robert, a Hollywood film editor, who is in a roller-coaster of a relationship with Mary, a bank executive. The film pretty much drops in on one go-round of what is clearly there standard cycle of breaking up and falling madly in love again.

It's quite a good film. Brooks is on the likable side of neurotic, and Kathryn Harrold as Mary is quite charming. James L. Brooks plays the director of the film that Robert is editing (He later cast Albert Brooks in Broadcast News.), and Bruno Kirby plays Robert's co-worker, Jay.

The film is full of memorable scenes, including a bit of an extended sequence with Robert at home after he takes Quaalude's that is pure gold and quite a bit more underplayed than the Quaalude scene in Scorcese's The Wolf of Wall Street.

It was interesting to watch this film in the context of the way films and television tackle relationships today - it feels a bit of a precursor to modern relationship comedies. The humor can be subtle and sometimes requires patience but it can really pay off. It's a well-paced film, too. I heard somewhere that - of all people - Stanley Kubrick was a big fan of the film!

I guess the one thing that really stood out for me is that these two people really had nothing in common. Why would Mary want a guy who seems sweet but is really just obsessing about her? Once he gets that white picket fence and her behind it, to what will his obsessions turn?

The greatest movie ever on the horror and insanity of love

[cannotlogon103 · 10/10 · 16 April 2007]

Though only his second directorial outing, "Modern Romance" is arguably Brooks' finest film and is the single most insightful and hilarious examination of the gut-wrenching and mind-twisting ordeal that is love. Some have commented that the movie is not as polished as his later work, and while that may be true from a cinematic standpoint, it is this raw quality that lends itself to an even greater statement about how a man can be turned upside down and inside out as he tries to comprehend life while under the influence of love. Brooks' doppelganger, Robert Cole, is the epitome of the obsessed and doomed lover, a man who knows his love for a woman (brilliantly portrayed by Kathryn Harrold, as the haughty and insecure Mary Harvard) is unhealthy, but is compelled nevertheless to have her. His struggle with reason and love is the central theme to the film, yet even though Cole is depicted as an irrational neurotic, never once does Brooks make him unsympathetic. While Coles' actions in his pursuit of Mary defy reason, anyone who has ever been in love will understand all too well why he does the things he does.

This is perhaps that only movie for which it can be said that every single scene -- nay, every line -- is hilarious. Spectacular performances from Mr. Brooks, Kathryn Harold, Bruno Kirby, and terrific cameos from James L. Brooks (no relation), Bob "Super Dave Osborne" Einstein (who IS Brooks' brother....Yes, Albert Brooks real name is....Albert Einstein!), George Kennedy and, believe it or not, Harlem Globetrotter Meadowlark Lemon, whose scene with Brooks is a moment of surreal genius. If for no other reason, see this movie for "the movie within the movie" that Brooks' and Kirby's characters are editing.

I would say to those who, for whatever reason, do not like Albert Brooks -- either you find him irritating or just don't get his humor -- then do not bother, because Brooks is center stage for the entire movie and the humor is the very essence of "Brooks-ian". Yet even if the movie seems very personal, it speaks to all of the world's "fools in love", managing to embody and transcend the filmmaker. I happen to think he is one of the funniest and insightful observers ever of the human condition, but am aware his style is not universally loved.

Though made in 1981, it is as resonant now as it was then; and, considering that people, against all rational thought, will forever fall in love, this movie will always have something very insightful and extremely funny to say. For what it's worth, I have over the years rated almost a thousand movies and TV shows here at IMDb, and have given less than 15 "10 stars". "Modern Romance" is one of those few films, and deservedly so. I am not saying the movie is not without its flaws; but because of the nature and subject matter of the movie, and because it is painfully obvious that Albert Brooks' personal experience is very much on display, those flaws actually add to the genius of the work.

Modern Romance and Ancient Angst

[ThurstonHunger · 6/10 · 24 March 2004]

If the world does indeed break down into Albert Brooks' fans and detractors, then I'm definitely in with the former. We are probably something akin to "negatively charged quarks" while the others are "super strings?" As an experiment, I wonder if a relationship could brook both sides of the Albert spectrum and last outside a vacuum??

Anyways, this is a fine 90 minute (so street legal as a feature film) comedy that feels shorter. The alert level for "needy neurosis" on this should be set as high as the scale goes. Indeed frequently we hit the "cringe" zone that Larry David is mining these days with his "Curb Your Enthusiasm" and earlier with Seinfeld.

While there are not a lot of laugh-out-loud moments for me, I don't think that is why the film moves so quickly. I think Brooks is just economical with what he shows us, I rarely feel (in any of his films) that he ever stoops to the audience. For the pace of this film to keep up is a tribute to the fact that its focus is a relationship that is going nowhere.

Even if it has to visit Idylwild to get to nowhere.

I suppose there's a potential deeper level here in that people who look for trouble in a relationship, or in a sci-fi film with George Kennedy, can always find such trouble. Even if it requires looking to the level of ridiculous detail.

Of course most films from 20 years ago are dated, and while the song-based humor, the quaalude interlude and answering machine are dated as dressing to the film, I really don't think the message is that far off mark today. If anything, I'd like to see Brooks take this a step further in the wake of Dr. Phil and others and deal with folks who NEED to have troubles in their relationships.

If you are looking for trouble in this film, go in expecting to identify with Brooks. Even when he hits moments that most of us could connect with (some exasperation with a parent, odd confessions to a co-worker, jumping back into the dating pool too quickly, getting swindled by salesfolks), he usually carries it to the level of lampooning. It's funny for me, but I think some people want so badly to identify with such a lead character that they cannot let go at these moments.

Anyways, I think this is a film worth seeing, indeed you probably should arrange to see it on cable with a potential boyfriend/girlfriend on one of your earlier dates. If you both like it, things are looking good. If you both detest it, likewise. One up and one down....hmmm, maybe try "My First Mister" as a backup test?

6/10

Albert Brooks' Best Film

[buby1987 · 9/10 · 15 December 2011]

Modern Romance is the most daring Albert Brooks film, and the funniest. He plays a film editor who is insanely jealous of his beautiful girlfriend. Even though the film is hilarious, it shares a similar dynamic with Raging Bull, which came out a few months before Modern Romance -- it focuses on a man who imagines his girlfriend is cheating on him, and yet it turns out not to be true. But even so, Brooks' character drives himself crazy with conjecture, imagining the worst. It is the flip side of trusting a girlfriend too much and then finding out she is sleeping with everyone.

Modern Romance also reminds me of another dark drama, The Gambler from 1974, in which the protagonist is smart and charming but nonetheless seeks to sabotage himself with bad behavior. Why do people destroy themselves? Some people don't want to be happy, it seems. To get comedy out of this shows the genius of Brooks.

Brooks' character, Robert Cole, is a successful film editor. We see him at work, and he is very creative and good at what he does. He is a control freak at work, making the most minute changes in the film he is working on, and he applies this same desire to control (to in effect "direct") his personal life. In a measure, he succeeds, because he is able to get his girlfriend to ultimately go along with what he wants, despite her misgivings -- and that's another issue to explore, why women fall in love with insecure or manipulative men and put up with their difficult personalities.

Brooks is very brave in playing such a difficult character, and there is nothing warm and fuzzy about Robert Cole. Brooks never tries to get the audience to love him, whereas actors like Steve Martin or Robin Williams would try to take the hard edge off and make him lovable.

Also impressive is Brooks spends a great deal of screen time by himself, talking on the phone, talking to himself, driving himself crazy and driving past his girlfriend's house, in effect stalking. He spends as much time alone as Travis Bickle in Taxi Driver. To turn all of this into comedy is a measure of Brooks' unique genius.

The Hamlet of Suburbia.

[rmax304823 · 6/10 · 18 December 2017]

Albert Brooks wrote, directed, and stars in this comedic/tragic tale of Kathryn Harrold's on and off romance with a man who just could not make up his mind. To the neurotic and semi-paranoid Brooks, the world looks like an optical illusion, a social Necker cube, in which someone's well-intentioned remark can turn with a flash into a put down. The overt can instantly seem covert.

The irony is that all of this difficulty is internal. It's Brooks' own insecurity, his self doubt and self reassurance that's causing the anguish. His girl friend loves him but is exasperated by his possessivness and distrust. Is she seeing some other guy on the side? Who did she call at three in the morning? His girl friend is Kathryn Harrold. She swallows the screen whole whenever she appears. She could gang bang every man in the city of Dubuque, Iowa, as long as she came home to me once in a while.

Taken as a whole, the movie has its longueurs. It's fun to see Brooks stone on Ludes and calling up old friends to tell them he loves them, but it does go on. The direction, though, is in no way amateurish. Still stoned, Brooks stumbles out of his house, gets into his Porsche, determined to visit Harrold, wrestles with the ignition, and then falls dead asleep. And Brooks the director never takes us for one second inside the Porsche. We can't even see Brooks through the window, just his mumbling and the silence that follows, until night turns to day -- all in one shot. Nicely done.

Put succinctly, my feeling was that if you like Woody Allen, you'll like this film. Not that Brooks deliberately imitates Allen but just that they draw their water from the same cultural well.

Albert Brooks' greatest film (and that's saying something)

[connorratliff · 10/10 · 1 June 2003]

MODERN ROMANCE is one of the great unsung film comedies. It's not for everyone, in that the comedy is possibly too close-to-the-bone for people who like their comedy nice and painless. But in the post-Seinfeld era, when Curb Your Enthusiasm is a cult favorite, it is looking more and more like Modern Romance was WAY ahead of its time.

Real Life, Lost In America, and Defending Your Life are all great, but for some reason this film stands out to me as Mr. Brooks' greatest cinematic effort. (Stanley Kubrick was a fan, too-- he was trying to make his own film about jealousy, which would end up being EYES WIDE SHUT two decades later.)

The real shame is that this film is the only Brooks effort never released on DVD. We can only hope that Criterion might rescue it from oblivion with a nice special edition (with commentary by Brooks!)

I'm a fan of Albert Brooks but this movie is just Meh

[marcresto · 6/10 · 31 December 2020]

Defending your Life and Mother this movie is not

I can count the funny on one hand

Kathryn Harrold Does a solid performance and she is very pretty in this movie maybe distractingly so but I think it's pertinent to the character

Brooks is neurotic and too much so for my taste in this movie. You end up talking to him from your sofa saying come on dude and wondering if the scene is probable or not... But I do like how he references The cutting room floor when editing movies some very clever insight there

Anyway six is about the most I can muster for this mediocre flick sorry Brooks

Great comedy

[billy-7 · 9/10 · 6 October 1998]

If you're an Albert Brooks fan already and you haven't seen this one yet, get set to become an even bigger fan once you do. This ranks with "Lost in America" as one of his two best, and in many ways this takes the prize. It's as funny and painful a view of a dysfunctional person as has ever been put on film in the name of comedy. In other words, it's better than all but the very best of Woody Allen. And that's saying a lot. In fact, Brooks's own persona is more likeable and more identifiable than Woody's--and Kathryn Harrold is unbelievably attractive in the female lead.

Love, non-Hollywood style.

[mark.waltz · 7/10 · 12 September 2016]

The Broadway musical, "Aspects of Love", proclaimed "Love Changes Everything", explaining that it makes fools of everyone, and boy, was that dong right. Without music, Albert Brooks does exactly that, having a midlife crisis when he breaks up with girlfriend Kathryn Harrold, then do desperately trying to get her back, expressing jealousy, screwing up at work, pursuing other romantic conquests he immediately regrets, then changing everything when he gets her back.

The genius in Brooks' films is that he is able to express the quirky and embarrassing sides of our life we couldn't write about if our final grade depended on it. He's like the L.A. version of Woody Allen, changing the trite style of dialog to real world conversation that almost makes the viewer feel that they are intruding in on private conversation.

I should mention that one sequence where Brooks goes into an athletic store to buy sneakers was repeated, practically in its entirety, in an episode of "The Golden Girls". A very funny sequence has Brooks trying to end a conversation with his mother and her attempt (unseen) to keep it going even though its obvious that he doesn't want to continue on the particular subject.

Cameos by George Kennedy and Meadowlark Lemon add to Brooks' career as a film editor, with Bruce Kirby as his assistant. Not all of the script covers the main plot, but it works, especially in detailing the life of a busy film editor. This is what is called a comedy of intellect, not meant for huge laughs, but providing bits of "I relate to that" smiles.

lust in America

[gurghi-2 · 5/10 · 8 May 2006]

I do like Albert Brooks. As an actor. As a writer and director, his movies fall short of funny, happy to be amusing. Modern Romance is par for the course.

Only in the exchange with Medowlark Lemon does the movie come close to explaining Brooks' neurotic obsession with his girlfriend: she's out of his league. We don't know enough to understand why she's with him; the movie is more interested in his antics. Not only is Brooks' character narcissistic, his movie is too.

The foley scene, the shopping excursion, the Hollywood party are all deftly handled and expertly underplayed. I truly believe that Brooks can find the humor in anything. But he's satisfied with too little in his movies, and his disregard for structure (in his early films) is both curious and frustrating. It's as if he thinks he can get away with less if he doesn't seem to be trying as hard.

Essentially, Modern Romance is a 60-minute monologue with some situational humor mixed in. Is he in love with her, or with himself? That may be the point, but that makes me neither marvel nor laugh.

Albert Brooks was not at his best in this movie

[nemkutya · 21 November 2000]

I love Albert Brooks. I cannot stress that enough. I was let down by this movie. Maybe I missed something? He breaks up "again" with his girlfriend and spends the rest of the movie pining for her and acting obsessively jealous.

The whole Quaalude bit was just lame and not funny although when he puts on the disco record and says it's depressing was funny. Even though his girlfriend kept saying she loved and missed him I never believed it. I always felt she wanted to be somewhere else with someone else, so in the end when he asks her to get married and she says yes I couldn't believe it. I didn't feel Albert was up to his full neurotic obsessive potential, like he was holding back. O.K. movie but probably only bearable to Albert Brooks fans.

The Albert (Brooks) Einstein Show!

[bsmith5552 · 6/10 · 30 June 2020]

Modern Romance is nothing more than an ego trip for Director, star, co-writer Albert Brooks. He dominates the film and if I'm not mistaken is in every single shot.

Brooks plays Robert Cole a successful film editor whom we meet dumping his girl friend Mary Harvard (Kathryn Harrold) for the umpteenth time. It seems that this has been a habit. Robert then goes away and pines over Mary trying to find ways to win her back. That's essentially it folks.

The first part of the movie deals with Cole sitting alone in his home moaning over the loss of Mary which he perpetrated in the first place. He leaves his home to ride around in his fancy sports car several times even to the point of buying gifts for her and leaving them on her doorstep. I mean the guy is so full of himself it's sickening. He even dates a girl named Ellen (Jane Halleren) and hilariously brings her right back home before going any where.

There are a couple of humorous scenes involving Brooks' brothers Bob (Super Dave Osborne) Einstein and Cliff Einstein (Hey it's a family affair, is it not?) Director James L. Brooks (no relation) in a stretch, plays the director of a cheesy sci-fi movie that Cole and his assistant Jay (Bruno Kirby) are editing. George Kennedy appears as Zeron in that movie as well as himself in a party scene.

Brooks' character is totally unlikeable in this one and so thoroughly dominates the film that I found myself counting the minutes until the end.

Albert Brooks: His best and my favourite

[kristian3 · 10/10 · 8 March 2000]

I'll come straight out with it: This is my favourite film of all time.

Albert Brooks is consistently the finest Writer, Director and Actor when it comes to the character driven comedy. And this is his finest moment.

Robert Cole (Brooks) is a middle-aged, neurotic film editor, who continually breaks up and rekindles his relationship with Mary Harvard (Kathryn Harold).

The film opens with a typically Brooksesk scene in a restaurant when he informs his girlfriend that things aren't working out. It is, perhaps, a measure of just how funny Brooks is that he even manages to be funny ordering an omelette; not intentionally, but funny nevertheless.

What follows is the most brutal portrayal of what being insecure and neurotic can really do to you, and the empathy I experienced for Brooks' character is possibly unmatched by any other.

I can appreciate that non-fans of Albert's might not fully appreciate this film - because it is so unashamedly Brooks - but I think most people will find something here to laugh-out-loud to, I know I laughed all the way through, and still do after dozens of replays.

Make no mistake, watch this film today, and start to appreciate a genius who is under appreciated. Long live Albert.

Albert Brooks' sophomore feature tackles jealousy and insecurity in the perfect anti-date movie

[IonicBreezeMachine · 7/10 · 15 January 2022]

Film editor Robert Cole (Albert Brooks) having broken up with his girlfriend Mary Harvard (Kathryn Harrold) yet again decides to reinvent himself by focusing on the B-rate space opera he's editing for American International Pictures, taking up jogging, and throwing himself in the dating scene. However, Robert begins feeling regret at his decision and tries to get back together with Mary only for his jealousy and paranoia to get in the way.

The second feature from Writer/Director Albert Brooks, Modern Romance while technically a "romantic comedy", fits that definition by way of the neurotic approach coined by Woody Allen's films such as Manhattan and Annie Hall. Featuring a couple who are in a repeated cycle of ending and reconciling their relationship, Brooks crafts a wickedly funny take on two people who are wrong for each other yet keep coming back together.

The movie speaks to a lot of those petty insecurities we've either experienced ourselves and seen in others as well as the overly forgiving "well maybe this time it'll be different" mindset that is the breeding ground of many bad decisions. From ill defined grievances to overcompensating attempts at making up that only serve to be undermined by poorly thought through interrogatives, Brooks creates a couple who have chemistry, but the audience REALLY doesn't want them to.

The movie also features some solid comedy and character outside of its core examination of a relationship that doesn't work, with a subplot about Robert dealing with the inane requests of the director whose film he's editing, ably played by James L. Brooks before his breakout with Terms of Endearment. The sheer ridiculousness Robert puts up with from the director's request such as "thumpier stomps" in a corridor chase are quite funny especially with how the get the effects. There's also some solid work with Brooks' brother Bob Einstein playing a pushy sports equipment salesman.

Modern Romance is an uncomfortable sit in many places, but it's a funny and insightful uncomfortable sit. With fleshed out characters and an unapologetic portrayal of a couple that just shouldn't be together, it's a guarantee for awkward and uncomfortable laughs.

Albert Brooks At His Best

[Niro · 9/10 · 4 December 1999]

Brooks' astute observation on men's foibles when obsessed, love~wise, aims high... and hits every mark.

His character's on~again, off~again boyfriend/girlfriend relationship with coke~sniffing Kathryn Harrold [in what is clearly her best performance in what turned out to be a quickly~disintegrating short career] is the basis for the film.

And it's a winner, for most male romantics I'd presume.

Or at least for me: I've done most of the sneaky things Brooks' character does at one time or another, while desperately in love.

As with most of Brooks' works, this isn't laughing out loud funny: it's wry, subtle and makes some great statements on man's utter base incapability of understanding women.

PS: In case you didn't know, Brooks' real name is Albert Einstein... his brother Dave also became a big star in the late '80s: as pseudo~daredevil "Super Dave Osborne"...

Kathryn Harrold Steals the Screen!

[whpratt1 · 7/10 · 10 March 2004]

Although I like Albert Brooks,(Robert Cole),"The Muse",'99, and his great acting skills. Albert seems to have over acted his role as a frustrated film editor or he needed to visit a doctor for new brain cells. He starts out the film having dinner with Kathryn Harrold(Mary Harvard), "MacGruder & Loud",'85 TV Series, and a big argument starts out between the two of them, all because Robert thinks they should break up their relationship. It seems they have nothing in common but SEX. However, Robert and Kathryn make up and Kathryn gives a quick nude performance in bed. The director wanted this nude scene in order to keep the audiences from getting bored! Kathryn Harrold helped put some sort of spark in the film and of course Albert Brooks did a great job of making Robert Cole the nuttiest person in the world! I got a headache just listening to Robert Cole complain on and on to his co-worker, another film splicer!!!

Modern man

[ALauff · 8/10 · 3 October 2007]

One of my major discoveries of this year is Albert Brooks. His comedy develops in a unique way from his queasiness regarding contemporary mores and he always plays the male symbol of self-absorption that his films affectionately target. Part of the joke is that his affluent characters myopically find misery in often mundane setbacks. Brooks takes their lives and concerns seriously (refreshingly, Brooks doesn't hold their wealth against them), but there's an implicit rebuke in their pettiness, and their journeys are carefully littered with clear-eyed supporting characters that illuminate their lack of suffering.

His character this time is more disturbed than most, a film editor working on a suitably bad George Kennedy sci-fi picture (Kennedy appears as himself at the director's house party), involved in an on-again/off-again relationship with a pretty banker named Mary (Kathryn Harrold). As the film opens, he breaks off their relationship yet again. Immediately regretting the decision, he seeks solace from his assistant editor (Bruno Kirby), who sends him home with a few Quaaludes. The ensuing chemical high leads to an extended scene of astonishing observation in which Brooks stumbles around talking to himself, his parakeet, his rolodex, and his record player ("I love my album collection. Look, I have so many great records!"), drunk-dialing a date with a woman he won't remember in the morning, and promising to embark on a new, Mary-free life. (The blind date is one of Brooks's wisdom-imparters, a lovelorn aging woman who clearly idolizes his character; their night together consists of a one-take drive around the block and back to her home again, the camera fixed on the hood capturing them both through the windshield, a sad Michael Jackson ballad on the radio.)

This resolution doesn't last long and soon enough they're back together. The story then takes a darkly funny turn into intense sexual jealousy and his character's controlling, near-sociopathic behavior. The film absolutely nails that feeling of sexual obsession-cum-inadequacy, in which you know the woman that you love is too good for you, so you compensate by holding her under your thumb, guarding her from the other guys drooling all over her low-cut blouse. By presenting this side of the male ego as bald reality, the film rightly renders such behavior insane but also symptomatic of the skewed state of monogamy in modern culture. Brooks doesn't quite go all the way with his character's increasingly mad behavior; if he has one flaw as writer-director, it's that he loves his characters too much to end their stories sourly, so the film has a rather warmed over, unsatisfying non-conclusion. But it's a very good film nonetheless, full of the kind of penetrating social observations at which Brooks is uncommonly adept.

Dry 1-Note Analysis...Male Monologue of Frustration Uneasiness Insecurity & Sex-Drive

[LeonLouisRicci · 7/10 · 8 May 2023]

While Experiencing this Mono-Mania of Self-Indulgence, the 2nd Film From the Dry-Humor-Guy, Albert Brooks,

it Feels Like a Lot of Woody Allen Movies, as if You are the Psychiatrist and the Brooks Character is in Dire Need of Analysis.

A Pathetic Individual, at Least in the "Modern Romance" Situation,

of Allowing the "Ego", "Appearance Perception", and "Life Style", that is Insecure Because He is Made to be Insecure and Unhappy.

He Knows No Other Way to Exist.

A High-Paying Good Profession (Film Editor), Creature Comforts...Clothes, Sports-Car, Stereo, and Eating Out at Restaurants...

is Not the Least Bit Comforting and is Considered, by the Hapless, Relationship Deficient, Self-Imploding Twit,

that Can't See, even a Little Bit, What's Obvious, Right in Front of His Eyes and Within Arms Length,

the Easy-Going, Warm and Forgiving, Ready to Hop-in-Bed, Woman He Has that Could, Would, or Should, Satisfy Most American-Males in a "Modern Romance".

But Our "Hero" that We Observe is a Never-Satisfied, Hard-to-Imagine, Taught-To-Lose, Ingrate. That Self-Mutilates, Never Learning, Again and Again.

The Audience Psychiatrist-Counselors, with the Patience of "Job", is Want to Feel Helpful and Heal this "Wounded Soul".

But the Self-Destruction, those Quaalude Make Him Feel Good...His Reaction..."Can you get me 100 of these."

Neither Quaalude, Analytic Diagnosis from a Mental-Health Professional, or Any Amount of Anything, Could Cure this Romantic Hypochondriac.

He Can't Help Himself...He Knows No Other Way to Exist...He is Made That Way

The Movie is a Humorous, Slyly Witty, 15 Minutes of Fame for the Incurable Fright-Fest of a Modern Male and His Inability to Relate and Romance the Opposite Sex.

If You Feel In the Mood for Treating this Misanthrope...it's...

Worth a Watch.

Brutally possessive love story

[Mr-Fusion · 8/10 · 25 February 2015]

Man, Albert Brooks is a trip in this movie. He's like the template for George Costanza, pushing his usual neurotic persona to the point of comically unlikable. It's not enough that he has to dog his ex until they get back together, but when she actually relents, he goes into paranoia overload. He's that kind of boyfriend who just won't leave well enough alone. It's almost painful but this is right in the man's wheelhouse, so he makes it funny. And you've gotta feel bad for Kathryn Harrold for putting up with all of this. Also of note here is a put-upon Bruno Kirby and "Super Dave" Osborn as a hustling sporting goods salesman.

As awful as Brooks' character is, the movie remains compulsively watchable.

8/10

Unbearable Brooks

[abooboo-2 · 4/10 · 19 December 1999]

This is a depressingly shallow, naive and mostly unfunny look at a wildly improbable relationship between Brooks' psychotic film editor and Harold, his vapid girlfriend. The two have ZERO chemistry together - primarily because Harold is incapable of doing anything besides looking pretty at this stage of her career; but also because Brooks' character is neither interesting nor likeable. There are 15 static, excruciating minutes at the beginning where Brooks, having just broke up with Harold, stumbles about his apartment in a depressed, drugged out state - unbearable.

Sappily and unimaginatively bookended by Joe Cocker's "You Are So Beautiful", there simply is not enough material here for a feature film. There is hardly anything going on on the periphery of their relationship to give the appearance that these people exist in a real world. I'm sure Brooks' intention was to shine a white hot spotlight on the affair and, in a way, deconstruct it; but if you're going to do that the writing and acting needs to be far far better than what it is here.

laugh and hope this isn't you

[Holden_Pike · 28 September 1998]

This is Albert Brooks at his neurotic, psychotic, hilarious best. If you are an obsessive person, especially when it comes to relationships, and you or someone you love always kind of feared that you're a big freak - a little too scary and weird - check out Albert Brooks' Robert Cole. You'll find that you aren't nearly as bad off as this insecure little man. Or at least I hope you aren't. It also has some really funny behind the scenes comments on Hollywood, as the character is a film editor in Los Angeles. After Broadcast News this is my favorite Brooks performance.