☆ ☆ ☆ ☆
Modern
Romance (1981) – A. Brooks
Albert Brooks makes things funny and
painful (even excruciating) for viewers at the same time with this extended
skit about an extremely neurotic film editor in an unstable relationship (the instability
is his own doing). Kathryn Harrold is
his impossibly patient girlfriend who works in a bank. Things start with Brooks breaking the
relationship up because he feels it isn’t working; cue a slow motion trainwreck
night on Quaaludes. Brooks tortures
himself (and the audience) with every false and real move that a man might make
when experiencing attachment anxiety. Of
course, he screws everything up – but somehow manages to return to relational
harmony (and then royally screws things up again). The plot aside, it is the little moments that
count with Brooks. We smirk as he gets
suckered in a sporting store or when he ridiculously recreates George Kennedy’s
footsteps on the Foley stage. The
character Brooks plays isn’t as intellectual as Woody Allen nor as stupid as
the fictional George Costanza (two erstwhile peers in pain) -- instead, he is the
everyman who worries too much. As a
director, Brooks knows how to draw out a specific incident such that viewers
can see the pain coming -- but it still resounds with comic reverberations when
it hits; he makes a lot out of a little. I laughed.
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