Modern Romance - Movie Review

Rating: 3 out of 5

If you're at all familiar with Albert Brooks's work, you know exactly what you're getting into here -- another study of neuroses and how they impact (negatively) relationships between the sexes.

Brooks, as usual, plays a riff on himself, with Kathryn Harrold (perhaps best known as Jenny Loud on MacGruder and Loud) as the apple of his eye. Brooks is up to his usual shenanigans here -- wondering whether Harrold is cheating on him, obsessing over every little detail, slamming Quaaludes, and wondering whether he shouldn't have dumped the girl after all. Eventually they'll come back together, only to be torn apart before the end. The question is whether we'll reach an equilibrium here where both parties are happy,

Alas, that's not really in the cards, and Modern Romance has its best moments when it has nothing to do with the Brooks-Harrold story, but rather when Bruno Kirby -- as Brooks's best friend -- is on screen. Another highlight is the film that Brooks and Kirby are editing, an absurd, cheesy sci-fi romp starring George Kennedy. It's got nothing whatsoever to do with the main storyline, which makes the repetition and relative tameness of the primary plot seem all the more obvious.

Facts and Figures

Year: 1981

Run time: 93 mins

In Theaters: Friday 13th March 1981

Distributed by: Sony Pictures Entertainment

Production compaines: Columbia Pictures Corporation

Reviews

Contactmusic.com: 3 / 5

Rotten Tomatoes: 85%
Fresh: 17 Rotten: 3

IMDB: 7.0 / 10

Cast & Crew

Director: Albert Brooks

Producer: Andrew Scheinman, Martin Shafer

Screenwriter: Albert Brooks, Monica Mcgowan Johnson

Starring: Albert Brooks as Robert Cole, Kathryn Harrold as Mary Harvard, Bruno Kirby as Jay, Tyann Means as Waitress, Jane Hallaren as Ellen

Also starring: Andrew Scheinman, Monica Mcgowan Johnson