Friday, January 01, 2021

Movie review - "Love Affair" (1994) *

 This must have seemed like a sure thing. Two movie stars in a remake of material that had been a hit twice, and been revived due to Sleepless in Seattle. Script by Robert Towne. Katherine Hepburn cameo.

It flopped. Warren Beatty is in a lot of flops. He's hesitant, not dynamic. He's too old here. So old.

The updating never quite works. An airplane isn't as romantic as a cruise liner - they turn it into a cruise liner eventually but even that's not romantic. 

Beatty is a former football player. His chemistry with Annette Bening is, irony, not that great. Bening isn't very good. She doesn't have much to play.

Maybe this could have worked if they'd rewritten it to make it the Warren Beatty story - a compulsive Don Juan who settles down. That would've been interesting. Have Beatty as a smart seductive movie star. I didn't buy him as a famous former football player. I know he used to play football, but that was in the 50s wasn't it.

I got a kick out of the fact they were flying to Sydney.

This film was annoying. It's very close to the 1957 versions. The final scene at the end felt like that. The dialogue worked with Cary Grant but not Beatty.

It's not even well shot or that handsome. Conrad Hall's photography is... dimly lit. Backlit. Something lit. It's not beautiful. The locations in Tahiti feel nothing. The sets aren't that plush.

Pierce Brosnan is in it playing Bening's original love interest. He is suave and dashing - he would've been better in the lead as written.

There's a random collection of support actors - Paul Mazursky, Garry Shandling, Kate Hepburn. It's old time-y. Not in a good way.

This isn't  good movie.

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