Modern Romance

I do like Albert Brooks. As an actor. As a writer and director, his movies fall short of funny, happy to be amusing. Modern Romance is par for the course.

Only in the exchange with Medowlark Lemon does the movie come close to explaining Brooks' neurotic obsession with his girlfriend: she's out of his league. We don't know enough to understand why she's with him; the movie is more interested in his antics. Not only is Brooks' character narcissistic, his movie is too.

The foley scene, the shopping excursion, the Hollywood party are all deftly handled and expertly underplayed. I truly believe that Brooks can find the humor in anything. But he's satisfied with too little in his movies, and his disregard for structure (in his early films) is both curious and frustrating. It's as if he thinks he can get away with less if he doesn't seem to be trying as hard.

Essentially, Modern Romance is a 60-minute monologue with some situational humor mixed in. Is he in love with her, or with himself? That may be the point, but that makes me neither marvel nor laugh.

This is Albert Brooks at his neurotic, psychotic, hilarious best. If you are an obsessive person, especially when it comes to relationships, and you or someone you love always kind of feared that you're a big freak - a little too scary and weird - check out Albert Brooks' Robert Cole. You'll find that you aren't nearly as bad off as this insecure little man. Or at least I hope you aren't. It also has some really funny behind the scenes comments on Hollywood, as the character is a film editor in Los Angeles. After Broadcast News this is my favorite Brooks performance.

Film editor Robert Cole (Albert Brooks) having broken up with his girlfriend Mary Harvard (Kathryn Harrold) yet again decides to reinvent himself by focusing on the B-rate space opera he's editing for American International Pictures, taking up jogging, and throwing himself in the dating scene. However, Robert begins feeling regret at his decision and tries to get back together with Mary only for his jealousy and paranoia to get in the way.

The second feature from Writer/Director Albert Brooks, Modern Romance while technically a "romantic comedy", fits that definition by way of the neurotic approach coined by Woody Allen's films such as Manhattan and Annie Hall. Featuring a couple who are in a repeated cycle of ending and reconciling their relationship, Brooks crafts a wickedly funny take on two people who are wrong for each other yet keep coming back together.

The movie speaks to a lot of those petty insecurities we've either experienced ourselves and seen in others as well as the overly forgiving "well maybe this time it'll be different" mindset that is the breeding ground of many bad decisions. From ill defined grievances to overcompensating attempts at making up that only serve to be undermined by poorly thought through interrogatives, Brooks creates a couple who have chemistry, but the audience REALLY doesn't want them to.

The movie also features some solid comedy and character outside of its core examination of a relationship that doesn't work, with a subplot about Robert dealing with the inane requests of the director whose film he's editing, ably played by James L. Brooks before his breakout with Terms of Endearment. The sheer ridiculousness Robert puts up with from the director's request such as "thumpier stomps" in a corridor chase are quite funny especially with how the get the effects. There's also some solid work with Brooks' brother Bob Einstein playing a pushy sports equipment salesman.

Modern Romance is an uncomfortable sit in many places, but it's a funny and insightful uncomfortable sit. With fleshed out characters and an unapologetic portrayal of a couple that just shouldn't be together, it's a guarantee for awkward and uncomfortable laughs.

MODERN ROMANCE is one of the great unsung film comedies. It's not for everyone, in that the comedy is possibly too close-to-the-bone for people who like their comedy nice and painless. But in the post-Seinfeld era, when Curb Your Enthusiasm is a cult favorite, it is looking more and more like Modern Romance was WAY ahead of its time.

Real Life, Lost In America, and Defending Your Life are all great, but for some reason this film stands out to me as Mr. Brooks' greatest cinematic effort. (Stanley Kubrick was a fan, too-- he was trying to make his own film about jealousy, which would end up being EYES WIDE SHUT two decades later.)

The real shame is that this film is the only Brooks effort never released on DVD. We can only hope that Criterion might rescue it from oblivion with a nice special edition (with commentary by Brooks!)

I love Albert Brooks. I cannot stress that enough. I was let down by this movie. Maybe I missed something? He breaks up "again" with his girlfriend and spends the rest of the movie pining for her and acting obsessively jealous.

The whole Quaalude bit was just lame and not funny although when he puts on the disco record and says it's depressing was funny. Even though his girlfriend kept saying she loved and missed him I never believed it. I always felt she wanted to be somewhere else with someone else, so in the end when he asks her to get married and she says yes I couldn't believe it. I didn't feel Albert was up to his full neurotic obsessive potential, like he was holding back. O.K. movie but probably only bearable to Albert Brooks fans.