Old Boyfriends

Talia Shire's marriage goes belly up and she decides to find old boyfriends to see who she was then, so she can find out who she is now. First up is old college beau Richard Jordan who asked her to marry him 3 times, but she turned him down. Don't know why, he sure is adorable, but she runs out on him again and moves on to high school beau John Belushi who shamed her, then quickly on to find a grammar school beau but that doesn't work out either. Meanwhile, Richard Jordan is looking everywhere for her because he and his daughter (Jordan's real life daughter) want her back. Heaven knows why, but he just doesn't give up easily. Talia Shire's character is not very sympathetic for the lead heroine, but Jordan's is and makes up for it. The scenes between them are sweet.

Talia Shire plays a troubled psychologist with a bad marriage behind her who decides to look up three former flames from her school days. The purpose: to reconnect with the person she was in order to understand the person she's become. Leonard and Paul Schrader penned this curious, tentative, occasionally thudding but often interesting feminine odyssey, a kind of 1970s retread of a Jean Simmons vehicle from the 1960s. Shire has pretty eyes and a beguiling, girlish smile, but her pinched, benumbed manner is off-putting, and the different personalities she affects with each successive man is more perplexing than intriguing. There's a funny, feminist-revenge bit involving John Belushi that is well done, but is that this woman's plan: to be a vengeful bitch? She's brittle and mysterious with single dad Richard Jordan and Adrian-like with psych-case Keith Carradine, but which lady are we supposed to be drawn to? Director Joan Tewkesbury, making her debut behind the camera after penning the acclaimed screenplay for Robert Altman's "Nashville", is typically cautious for a first-time filmmaker; she keeps a steady pace, but her apparent insistence on being enigmatic regarding the central character (and her background) eventually backfires. The film is excruciatingly tasteful (aside from the Belushi episode) and visually washed out, but it surprisingly isn't a man-hater's movie. It does a provide a prince in the end (a prince this psychologist might not deserve), yet it stays grounded and isn't too flighty or vindictive. ** from ****

Pretty solid story from the Schrader brothers, decent, if cautious, direction & camera work and the wrong, wrong, wrong actress in the lead role which for me, torpedoed the whole film. That would be Talia Shire who's no slouch - see Connie Corleone - but who doesn't possess a hard edged bone in her body. She's too sweet to play the depressive psychosis asked for here.

Actually it's really three roles in one as Shire revisits three long lost boyfriends in an effort to gain some self knowledge following a half hearted suicide attempt that opens the film. I've always found Richard Jordan to be pretty much a drip when he's not stiff as hell (The Friends Of Eddie Coyle and Logan's Run the two supporting roles of his that spring to mind first) and he doesn't really do anything here to change my mind. Belushi as boyfriend number 2 is too raw and unpolished for a dramatic role at this point in his career.

Boyfriend number 3, Keith Carradine, is everything someone like Jordan is not, curious and alive on screen, always with an air of the unknown about him. This is the film's best sequence with Shire's natural nurturing instincts coming to the fore - she and Carradine play well off each other. One is badly damaged, the other is going through a rough patch. But it all feels too brief, rushed, with not enough of Carradine's back story to flesh him out more fully.

Not a bad movie and if someone like Faye Dunaway had played the leading role might've been a great one.

Psychiatrist Talia Shire goes nutzoid-- she dopes herself up, slams herself into a concrete wall, ditches her husband, then hops into her firebird and hunts down her old boyfriends in a somewhat vague quest for vengeance. First up is Richard Jordan, who actually loved her. Second is John Belushi, who humiliated her in high school. And third is a boy who was killed in Vietnam, though his brother Keith Carradine bears a startling resemblance to him. In the end, though, she learns that life goes on and gets on with it.

"Old Boyfriends" is an underrated little curio. Talia Shire gives what is probably her best non-Adrian performance (and that's a shame, because this movie is nearly lost). The rest of the cast isn't quite so bad itself, particularly Richard Jordan as the one "good boyfriend". John Belushi also shines as Shire's senior-year boyfriend, using a lot of Bill Murray-isms and doing quite well in what is a serious role for him. John Housemann seems a bit hammy during his confrontation with Shire. It almost comes off as if he's trying his best to take down the lead.

Director Joan Tewkesbury does an adequate job, but her work here is nothing special. Though, the set-up of a scene with Shire and Jordan in a bathroom is particularly clever and stylish. At 103 minutes, the film doesn't seem long at all-- it runs fairly smoothly as follow Shire from ex to ex. The only seemingly bad thing about the film is David Shire's (then husband of Talia) score-- it just seems rather limp and unimpressive and meanders about melodically.

Though it may not be for everyone, give "Old Boyfriends" a shot (if you can find it). It's rather undeserving of its much maligned reputation.

Thirty something Dianne Cruise (Talia Shire) is going into her past to reconnect with three old boyfriends. College boyfriend Jeff Turin (Richard Jordan) is directing a campaign ad. High school boyfriend Eric Katz (John Belushi) is playing in a band part-time. Finally, he connects with Wayne Van Til (Keith Carradine).

This is written by Paul Schrader and his brother Leonard Schrader. The director Joan Tewkesbury seems to be a Jill of all trades. I was initially most interested in John Belushi, but his section is most memorable for him beating the heck out of a cow bell. I like Talia but she's going a little out of her range. Richard Jordan is nothing special. The Keith Carradine section needs more time and space. It is the most daring part and it feels rushed. I'm not a fan of interior monologue and this needs flashbacks to set up these encounters. All and all, this movie is a mixed bag.