User reviews

ONLY THE LONELY gives such rich roles to JOHN CANDY and MAUREEN O'HARA as an Irish mother and son enduring a love/hate relationship while his outspoken mother "tells it like it is" to anyone who stands between her and her son. This includes the girl he's smitten with, a shy, introverted type (ALLY SHEEN) who wants him to stop putting his mother first under any and all situations.

He's constantly imagining bad things happening to his mother if he neglects her (and this leads to some funny, imaginative moments that have him imagining the nightmarish things that happen when he turns his back on her). All of these incidents are vividly portrayed and given substance and wit by a clever script and some very truthful performances from the entire cast.

MAUREEN O'HARA is so perfect as the hateful mother with her bigoted view of "that Dago girl" that she should have had at least an Oscar nomination for her feisty portrayal. JOHN CANDY creates a really sympathetic character as the man hopelessly in love with the quiet girl his mother despises. ANTHONY QUINN gives a gentle, finely shaded performance of the man next door who loves Maureen from afar and JOHN BELUSHI is excellent as Candy's worker friend.

It's a good mixture of comedy and drama that never becomes too mawkish or sentimental and exposes some of the hypocrisies of human nature that are not often shown on screen.

Well worth watching for the performances alone.

More of a romantic comedy than just straight comedy this movie from the late John Candy was really good. He plays a policeman with a bit of a domineering mother who has not had much success in finding that special someone. He finally does, but not surprisingly his mother disapproves of her. Throughout the film we are shown how this relationship between Candy's and Sheedy's character progresses and how hard the mother tries to get in the way and stop her son from marrying an Italian girl instead of a nice Irish girl. We also get to see how much Candy's character worries about his mother when he is not with her, imagining all sorts of unfortunate events leading to her demise. We get to see a rather creative way of getting a deceased person's corpse out of an apartment building too. The funniest scene and quite frankly a rather awkward scene as well has to be the dinner scene where the son finally introduces mother to prospective new wife to be. All in all this movie is really nice and sweet, the comedy is pretty tame for the most part with nothing to crude and the relationship between the couple seems more real than most romantic comedies these days.

John Candy was one of the most gifted actors in Hollywood having seen his performances in Splash, Uncle Buck, Spaceballs and Cool Runnings he had a great talent for both comedy and drama. Only the Lonely is a funny little gem that also features the great acting of Maureen O'Hara, Jim Belushi & Ally Sheedy.

The story is simple a lonely Chicago cop in his late 30's finds romance with the daughter of a funeral parlour owner he must also deal with his mother who disapproves of the relationship. Maureen O'Hara portrayed the role of Rose Muldoon to perfection, she comes across as a tight fisted iron willed Irish woman who tells it like it is without any regard of who gets hurt.

Danny Muldoon (Candy) is a 38 year old police officer who still lives with with his mother in Chicago he is always worried about her to the point of having nightmares in which something bad happens. still single and longing to find love soon enough his search ends up in the one place nobody would expect. One evening at a bar Danny crosses paths with Theresa Luna (Sheedy) the shy daughter of funeral parlour owner Johnny Luna (Greco). The next day he heads to the parlour where Theresa does make up for the stiffs. He asks her out, she says yes. The funniest scene is when they are on the date and he tells an amusing story about his brother Patrick's (Dunn) bachelor party.

Another plot of the film sees Nick Acropolis (Quinn) Danny's neighbour trying to win the affections of his mother he's been asking her out for years she keeps turning him down. However by the end of the film after accepting her son's choice to be with the love of his life she warms up to Nick's charms.

Funny & filled with many dramatic moments Only The Lonely is a good gem of a movie for anyone out there. Rest In Peace John you are missed.

"Only The Lonely" was a great romantic comedy. I absolutely love it and John Candy never disappointed. I loved the storyline and all the actors did great jobs. Ally Sheedy was sweet and Maureen O'Hara was great although her character made me mad sometimes. I felt sorry for Danny (Candy) at times because he loved Theresa (Sheedy) so much but yet his mother didn't want him to be with her because of her religion. And his brother didn't like her because she was too plain. I was a little upset when he didn't show up for the wedding and he and Theresa went their separate ways for a while. But the ending was great and I was happy for them. Jim Belushi and Anthony Quinn were great and I really love this movie. But thanks for reading my review. Rest in peace John Candy. We miss you!!! :(

John Candy was a gift, he made any movie he was in better for just being in it. This is one of those instances. While the movie isn't bad, it wouldn't be remembered if it wasn't for Candy. Sheedy puts in a great performance in this and is always likable.

'Only the Lonely' is an okay film, that rides on the late/great John Candy's undeniable talent. The talented actor, pitches in a likable performance, that dominates the film.

'Only the Lonely' Synopsis: A Chicago cop must balance loyalty to his overbearing mother and a relationship with a shy funeral home worker.

Besides Candy's likable performance, 'Only the Lonely' also manages to get in some cute/funny moments. The characters are nicely written & the Screenplay overall, has some niceness to it. But, the slow-pace as well as the length, needed some serious persuasion. The pace is slow & the film is lengthy by at least 15-minutes. Chris Columbus's Direction is fair. Cinematography is standard. Editing isn't crisp.

Performance-Wise: Candy is the life of 'Only the Lonely'. Maureen O'Hara is theatrical. Ally Sheedy is cute. Anthony Quinn & James Belushi appear in brief roles.

On the whole, 'Only the Lonely' is a yet another example of how great an actor John Candy was.

Danny Muldoon (John Candy) is a good natured Chicago cop living with his racist mother Rose (Maureen O'Hara). He's always worried about his mom. She keeps rejecting the flirty Greek Nick Acropolis (Anthony Quinn). He and his partner Salvatore Buonarte (James Belushi) drive the prisoner wagon. His brother Patrick is happy to have Danny take care of mom and moving them to Florida. Danny falls for Theresa Luna (Ally Sheedy) who works at her father's funeral parlor. She's also lonely and extremely shy.

It's a light rom-com with lovable John Candy. Ally Sheedy is pretty quiet. I really love both actors and they project simple nice people. O'Hara has the funniest jokes. Surprisingly she is hilarious and provides the majority of the laughs. It's a shame that she disappeared from the movies for such a long time. She's the true breakout star of this movie.

Roy Orbison's classic hit song Only The Lonely serves as opening theme and title for this film. The lyrics themselves spell out the characters of John Candy and Ally Sheedy two people looking like they're not fated to find mates.

In Sheedy's case she's a cosmetologist who works in a funeral home, a profession that for some reason weirds people out. Candy is a cop and I'm not sure anyone his size and weight would make the force. Maybe they have looser requirements for the Chicago PD.

I know that in some cultures it is a common practice to keep one daughter at home to take care of the parents in old age. In this case Candy's Irish momma Maureen O'Hara kept her son home. She's a widow with another son Kevin Dunn married with children, but Candy she keeps tied to her apron strings.

O'Hara has a nasty comment for everybody. Some of the dialog has Candy talking about past indiscretions she's committed. She also has widower Greek neighbor Anthony Quinn playing a senior citizen version of Zorba interested in here. But there isn't another race, ethnic group or religion good enough for her and her family.

Candy and O'Hara play well against each other in scenes that call for a love and resentment to be demonstrated at the same time. O'Hara was back after an over 20 year hiatus from films. If you read her memoirs it was a combination of some personal crises, the death of her husband and she was not happy with the way films had become too loose morally.

She also spoke highly of her co-star John Candy whom she thought of as a big old giant teddy bear. His early death deeply affected her.

Only The Lonely a good film for romantics of all ages.

A wonderfully light RomCom that stands as one of the best tributes to John Candy (alongside Uncle Buck).

Though, this is a comedy, it still allows Candy to show his true acting skills, and many of the choicest comedy moments go to Maureen O'Hara as Candy's mother, who almost steals the film.

It is a sad trait in Hollywood theory which appears to dictate that comediens can't do serious acting and so should never be given serious roles, yet many have proved this to be wrong. John Candy himself proved it in JKF, Dan Aykroyd did in Driving Miss Daisy, and Robin Williams has done it on numerous occasions.

This film reminds us of the John Candy we will always love, as the big guy with a big heart to match.

Farewell John, you are sadly missed.

The good: Jim Belushi and John Candy provide for some excellent deadpan jokes, that are to die for AND stay funny, even after repeated viewing.

More good: John Candy has got a golden heart and he is capable of showing a (more) serious romantic side as well, always accompanied with a side joke ofcourse.

Any bad? The role of the overbearing mother is a bit thin and not very credible, but the mother functions as the serious character who is there to set up the conflicts in the house, where John Candy still lives with his mother, while already being 38 and still being single.

Will John Candy find true love and escape from his mother?

ONLY THE LONELY (2+ outta 5 stars)

Probably John Candy's best role on film... not an all-out comedy laugh-fest as most would expect... it's actually a kind of sweet, sentimental story (somewhat influenced by the classic film/play "Marty" starring Ernest Borgnine) about an aging bachelor cop (Candy), his overbearing mother (Maureen O'Hara, just as sassy on screen as in her heyday) and the plain, young mortician with whom he falls in love (Ally Sheedy). Yeah, right... Ally Sheedy is "a little plain"... just like she was in "Breakfast Club". Why, oh why so they always have to cast these drop-dead gorgeous movie stars as "plain" people. (Michelle Pfeiffer in "Frankie and Johnny"... anyone buy THAT one?) Anyway, Sheedy and Candy do have a sweet chemistry together... the movie is a very NICE movie... there is a little bit of a dramatic subtext that could have been explored a little deeper... but the film chooses to keep the tone light... maybe *too* light. Several scenes of Candy imagining terrible accidents happening to his mother due to his absence seem a little too "cute-sy"... but I guess they didn't want to freak audiences out by getting too realistic.

This has to be one of my all time favourite movies! I loved seeing the late, great John Candy in a romantic comedy lead role.

Casting was superb with Ally Sheedy as his shy love interest, and Maureen O'Hara as his domineering Irish battleaxe mother.

Watch for Jim Belushi as Danny's (John's) cop partner and Macaulay & Kieran Culkin as John's nephews.

Anthony Quinn turns in a charming performance as Nick Acropolis, the Greek neighbour who fancies Rose (Maureen O'Hara).

John Candy was such a superb actor and passed away suddenly at the age of 43 - this movie was one of his unsung gems and one could only wonder at what he might have given us.

A MUST SEE!!

Good little romantic comedy showing 2 social outcasts falling for each other out of sheer desperation. Things are lovely until the girl discovers her boyfriend is overly attached to his mommy and appears to be unable to break the maternal ties. O'Hara was a howl as the doating mom. Funny stuff: this and "Planes, Trains, & Automobiles" are my fave Candy films.

It was a grand and inspired move from writer-director Chris Columbus to bring Maureen O'Hara back to the screen in a modern-day romantic comedy, playing the feisty, hen-pecking mother of an unmarried Chicago cop--but that's where Columbus' good ideas run aground. O'Hara's steely looks and angry outbursts are wonderful, and she's quite comfortable acting alongside John Candy as her son, yet this script is so thin it has to rely on mean-spirited fantasy and dumb, time-worn slapstick and insults to pad its running-time. The Chicago sites and neighborhoods aren't really captured with any flavor (the city never comes to life), and James Belushi just gets in the way as the proverbial best friend. Candy does some nice work, and Ally Sheedy (as Candy's new girlfriend from the local funeral parlor) works hard to give the love story a quirky bounce, but the results are a near-miss. ** from ****

Personally, I would watch Maureen O'hara recite the local phone directory-even at age 71. John Candy shows his big, soft side in one of my favorite efforts of his. While the plot is fairly predictable from the outset, the treat to me is watching the interaction between O'hara and Candy. She is snide enough to make me want to dislike her intensely. But she's Maureen O'hara-I couldn't hate her if I wanted to. An entertaining movie that garnishes a 7 from the swingman.

Directed by Chris Columbus. Starring John Candy, Maureen O'Hara, Ally Sheedy, James Belushi, Anthony Quinn, Kevin Dunn, Joe Greco, Bert Remsen, Milo O'Shea. (PG-13)

Lonely Chicago cop Candy falls in love with a funeral home makeup artist (Sheedy, an awkwardly shy wallflower in her early scenes and suddenly...not); there's just one problem, and it's spelled M-O-M. One of the better vehicles for its likable star, emphasizing his sympathetic schlub side over his cloddish funny side, is sweet and sentimental and even a little corny, but still likable enough. It was the first film role for O'Hara in two decades (she came out of retirement to play the part) and she gets it just right--tart, smothering, frustrating, callously honest (even bigoted), but just well-meaning enough to not come off as a complete shrew. The comic relief on the fringes (Candy's sex-obsessed partner Belushi; Quinn as an amorous neighbor; fantasy sequences where terrible things happen to that poor, poor harridan of a mother; etc.) can be hit-or-miss, and as a pure romance, it's pretty thin gruel with only moderate chemistry on display, but it's still a pleasant enough diversion to warrant a watch.

64/100

John Candy turns in a wonderful performance as Chicago police officer Danny Muldoon, in his late-30s and still living with his mother. He tries to pursue a relationship with a young girl working as a makeup artist in a funeral home, but his Irish mother won't seem to let go. Quite a charming story, with a few jolts coming from Danny's imagined fears of his mother being harmed when he's not there for her. The way Chicago is represented is hit-or-miss, possibly due to licensing issues for some of the more well-known Chicago images (most notably, the Chicago policeman's uniform and the design of the Chicago squad car), but those flaws notwithstanding the movie still has a Chicago feel to it. There actually are still a few remaining store-front funeral homes in Chicago, and of course the plentiful Irish pubs are captured perfectly. Probably the unheralded star of the movie is old Comiskey Park, which for 80 years was the home of the Chicago White Sox. The filming took place after the final baseball game was played there in 1990 (and a few months before its fateful date with the wrecking ball), and the first-date picnic on the playing field was a wonderful and touching sendoff for the old park. After going to many White Sox games there since age 5, it sure was nice to see the fireworks from the scoreboard one last time!

This is a touching little comedy about a grown up man who still lives with his mother out of fear of something happening to her. Though it's not really funny it's still an entertaining story. ** out of ****

As one of the many innocuous comedies starring John Candy, "Only the Lonely" may not seem like much. But I think that it's looking at something really good. Candy plays a Chicago cop who still lives with his Irish immigrant mother (Maureen O'Hara). One day, he meets a woman (Ally Sheedy) working in a funeral home and develops a relationship with her. However, he always worries that something bad is going to happen to his mother, and this always interferes with his dates. Sooner or later, he will probably have to decide which he will stick with.

I wish to assert that John Candy is being more than his usual silly self in this movie. Part look at relationships and part look at generation gaps, this movie is worth seeing. Of course, it wouldn't be a John Candy movie without some scenes that appear to have been thrown in for pure comic relief. For example, the scene where his mother walks into the police station unannounced; if I'd been that one man, I sure would have been embarrassed! OK, so maybe as someone who's been raised in the US with no immediate relatives from the Emerald Isle, I'm probably not the best person to comment on the relationship between an Irish immigrant and her son. But still, I think that "Only the Lonely" is a pretty good movie.

"She does it with lots of men." Ha!

After Maureen O'Hara died last month, I suddenly got the urge to order this-her last theatrical movie-from Netflix for me and my mom to watch when she came back from visiting my sister in Seattle. I was wonderfully surprised to find out my mom hadn't previously seen this as that meant she would watch this with fresh eyes as I had seen this on VHS tape back in the day and remember enjoying this at the time. We both very much loved this just now. I mean, Ms. O'Hara is her lovable self-provided her character is a tad bigoted though she's simply "telling it like it is". Her son, John Candy-another performer who's been missed since he passed away only a few years after this movie-is a cop who lives with her and has been quite lonely as a result. Then one day, he meets Ally Sheedy as someone who does makeup on deceased bodies when they're both at a wake and he bravely asks her out which she accepts. I'll stop there and just mention that some complications ensue but things seem to work out at the end. Fine support from Jim Belushi as Candy's cop partner and Anthony Quinn as a neighbor who is crushing on Ms. O'Hara. Written and directed by Chris Columbus, he does a nice mixing of drama and comedy when the sequences call for it and also makes good use of the Chicago locations (a city I was born in and lived as a child for about 6 years as well as one I visited quite a bit during the '80s). Anyway, Only the Lonely is a fine tribute to the careers of both Candy and O'Hara before their untimely deaths. Oh, and Quinn as well before he passed several years later.

The best thing about this movie is it starts off with Roy Orbison's song "Only The Lonely". It's not a bad film, mind you, it just would have been much better as an old-fashioned one. Namely, all the sex talk should have been eliminated, and the incredibly shy mortuary cosmetologist in it should not have wanted to sleep with the nice cop after only a couple of dates. It was a bit unbelievable, too, that she so quickly went from being so shy that she could hardly speak to being a self-confident woman. (Maybe the movie was proposing that sex instantly changes someone for the better.)

Maureen O'Hara, in her last movie role, was not a pleasant character. Yet she is not so offensive that she comes across as repulsive. What she says is indeed that offensive, but Miss O'Hara fails to seem truly hateful. She is simply repeating stereotypes she learned as a child. Anthony Quinn is once again a Greek in this movie, and he is the stereotypical Greek lover type. Ho-hum. John Candy comes across extremely well and extremely sweet. His actions in the film seemed unbelievable at times, but that didn't wreck the story. What damaged it is it's like a '60s story set in the 1990s.

This is a good John Candy film, one of the many he made in some sort of collaboration with legendary writer/director/producer, John Hughes.

Although Hughes is on producer duty on this occasion, it still feels very much like a John Hughes film, even down to the fact that Ally Sheedy of 'Breakfast Club' fame appears as Candy's love interest.

This film is very, very similar in tone and story to the 1955 film 'Marty', and perhaps didn't do well at the box office because of that fact, as 'Marty' is so beloved.

It's a decent film though, one that boasts good performances from those involved.

Years ago when this flick first came out I was dubious, because of the presence of John Candy, whose great popularity I still am at a loss to explain. I recently read a reference somewhere to this flick as worth seeing, so I went for it, 23 years late. After seeing it, I am happy to know my original instincts were correct. "Marty" this ain't, and Candy is no Borgnine. And why, oh why, did Maureen O'Hara choose this as her farewell vehicle? The script makes her a domineering, racist, obnoxious, rude, and thoroughly nasty person, and any attempts with her acting to tone this down are in vain. This is not billed as an outright comedy, in which naturalness can be discarded, so we have some expectation that the characters will interact in someway at least half believable. O'Hara's character is so vile that it is impossible to believe that her son would not have left her long ago, preferably after burying her in the cellar. I like Jim Belushi, but as a previous viewer said, his contribution here is minimal. As far as character development, we are asked to believe that Candy's girl friend goes from docile and practically mute to a stand-up-for-me character just about overnight. It doesn't wash. The best thing here is Anthony Quinn, who, in his minor role, plays it perfectly.

I should have gone with my instincts 23 years ago and let this dog lie.

Roles like this helped make big John Candy somewhat of a beloved figure in his time. He was good at playing big, lovable oafs that usually messed up but had a good heart.

Many times, as in here, he might appear jovial on the outside but inside he was a very lonely guy, hence the title. I'll bet a number of viewers could identify with him. In this film he plays "Danny Muldoon."

Ally Sheedy's character, "Theresa Luna," is sweet in the beginning but then becomes unfairly-demanding and annoying by the end. Maureen O'Hara did a fine job playing "Danny's" domineering mother, "Rose." She came out of retirement to do this film and did herself proud. Anthony Quinn's role was stupid.

This movie is billed as a comedy but I didn't find a lot of laughs in it. It's really more of a sentimental drama, and it works on that level. I always enjoy seeing comedians do drama, because they are so good at doing it. I'm sorry Candy didn't make a few more dramatic roles.