Director: Albert Brooks
Cast: Albert Brooks, Debbie Reynolds, Rob Morrow, Lisa Kudrow
Have I Seen It Before: Yes. I remember this film eerily well. I honestly think it aired on HBO, I recorded it, and I watched it over and over again.
Did I Like It: It’s odd to say that Brooks—and specifically Brooks’ character in this film—was something of an heroic figure for my adolescence. He made a living writing science fiction books. I wanted* to make a living at writing science fiction novels. What’s more, I wanted to just happen upon beautiful women out in public who are so windswept by my typing that she’s willing to follow me to what would be to any rational observer a meetup for serial killers, and that would solve all of my lovelorn problems.
Forget the fact that he has a painfully neurotic relationship—matched only by his brother (Morrow)—with his mother, is irretrievably blocked** on his next novel, and that he has been twice divorced. John Henderson had the life.
And he fixes his relationship with his mother (Reynolds)! What more could a man want out of life when he gets to his forties?
The humor of the film is lively, making conscious decisions at every point to not descend into sitcom cliché and make every beat not only emanate from the characters as we’ve come to know them, but be in service of the characters ongoing development. It’s an exceptionally, almost deceptively well-crafted comedy. So much so that by the resolution, there might be a flash of feeling cheated, but not everything has to end with one more punchline.
And if you think it was easy for me to admit that, you’re crazy.
The casting is also quite good. Brooks plays the same leading-man he has created for himself previously, but does it without any trace of a self-consciousness that you might come to expect from writer-director-stars. Look out for Lisa Kudrow’s near-cameo. I think we all get how good she really is, but opting to be “the blind date” in an Albert Brooks’ movie is a more purely comedic choice for an actress at that point in her career, when she could have just as easily been the second half of any cookie cutter romantic comedy, and made plenty of money in the effort.
Then there’s Debbie Reynolds. Picking up her career after several years away, she’s as natural as she was in decades past. It’s infinitely fascinating that Nancy Reagan (of all people) seriously considered playing the part before ultimately passing. She wouldn’t have been nearly as good—and indeed, never was—as Reynolds, but my, oh my, would that have been a fascinating version of this film.
*I haven’t given up the ghost on it, but… You know. I live in the real world.
**I get the need to introduce complications into the life of a main character, but blocks are for chumps. Throw him Grady Tripp’s (Michael Douglas) problems in Wonder Boys (2000) and then we have something.