Love and Pain and the Whole Damn Thing

This is a great low key film. Maggie Smith is wonderful in this off beat drama/comedy. She did this I believe after " The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie " but her performance is clearly up to that standard. It really is a very sweet love story with the ups and downs of a relationship between Maggie and Timothy Bottoms. His performance is also very good and kept very low key much like the film in general. I don't know why it is not available on DVD or VHS? I happen to have recorded it off of a Canadian Broadcast years ago. I have also tried searching a number of rental house to no avail. If Mr. Pakula reads this please find away to make this little gem of a film available to everyone. Thank You.

This heart-tugging April-August romance cannot be equaled for the lush Spanish scenery, excellent photography, haunting music, and courageous humor. A young Timothy Bottoms was fresh from his excellent performance in THE LAST PICTURE SHOW, and Maggie Smith was in fine form portraying a spinster whose rose had lost its bloom. Her role is an excellent example of how a skilled, attractive actress enters a more mature, "seasoned" stage of her career. Both characters are slight misfits, fishes out of water on a cut-rate bus tour in the Spanish back-country who begin as antagonists but gradually draw closer. This is a tried formula, but in expert hands. It is a mystery why LOVE AND PAIN has never been marketed in any video format, or posted more prominently on the resume of either of its stars.

This is a delightful film of coming of age, and coming to life. The one, a young man, suffocated by his blue-blood family, finds himself in the eyes of an older woman. And she, a not-quite-middle-aged spinster suffocated by her roles in life, is yearning for something to live for as she faces a final illness. He falls in love with her unaffected realism; and she with his boyish enthusiasm and unashamed wonder at the world. Together they struggle with what they see as a lack of tolerable options for such an odd couple; while learning more and more to depend on each other for much more than friendship. Together they discover Europe, and life, and each other, and themselves ... and bring us all a little more to life when they do.

Boo hoo- I can't imagine why this movie is not available..!! It truly lives up to the title-- covering love, pain and 'the whole damned thing' much in the way depth comedies like Harold and Maude or A Thousand Clowns (Jason Robards) did. I still remember certain humorous 'Maggie' scenes after 30+ years since my first viewing -- and had no idea I'd have any trouble finding the film to add to my comedy classics collection!! With Maggie in full bloom these days - even with the younger set (via Harry Potter), there is no excuse not to have one of her funniest available!! (The toilet paper stuck-on-her scene was great!) Timothy did VERY well,too-- just right, in fact and I remember this film and The White Dawn as two of his best films. Besides comedy and pathos and great scenery (eg Spain) there was a touch of Harold and Maude in this film. Maggie was cast as the endearingly disbelieving love object of Timothy Bottoms deepening devotion, and in certain scenes wherein his father tries to talk him out of the preposterousness of being in love with an older (and dying) woman, there are echoes of similar scenes between Bud Cort and those trying to dissuade Harold from the (supposed) foolhardiness/repulsion factor of loving Maude!)

I saw this film for the first time when it was coupled with "the main film"...The Dove. Fortunately this film came on first and afterwards, during the preview of The Dove, most of the audience left. They clearly had come to see Maggie Smith. This is an absolutely perfect film and I would love to share it with other people.