Best Friends

Norman Jewison (In the Heat of the Night, Rollerball) directed this supposedly romantic comedy about a middle-aged writing couple acting like teenagers at the behest of their respective parents. Barry Levinson and Valerie Curtin wrote the script, based on their own relationship, and while it's not too difficult to spot the authenticity and potential, the script limits itself and gets too hung up on its own conundrums. After a fun start, in which the chemistry between stars Burt Reynolds and Goldie Hawn is palpable and very much enjoyable, the film starts to drag when the couple go on a road trip to their in-laws. It's all obviously meant to feel claustrophobic, but the film isn't just suffocating its protagonists; it's also suffocating itself. There's a lack of perspective here, which the filmmakers try to make up for with babbling, Allenesque dialogue, making the film's various stages seem perpetual and unforgiving. Reynolds and Hawn not only wear each other out, they also wear this entire film out. And Jewison is never able to find the tools to lift Best Friends out from its own misery. It could have been a good movie.