Modern Romance

Some movies get better the more often I see them, because I have more time to enjoy the subtle jokes in the dialogues. Albert Brooks is famous for his dialogues and his whining. I love it, but some might find it tedious and self centered. It is both those things, but the boring self centered behaviour is all done tongue in cheek, like no one else can do it, the funny way Albert Brooks does. He is often referred to as the Californian version of Woody Allen. If you like Allen you hopefully appreciate the same kind of insecure self hatred jokes of Albert Brooks.

What's the story about? Albert Brooks plays a guy who is terribly in love with a woman. But he is terribly jealous as well. He just doesnt trust her. He is afraid of losing her to any hansom guy walking past down the street. Extremely possesive. So he decides to break up with her. But the moment he has broken up, he starts longing for her again. He cant live with her, but he cant live without her either. The jokes about all the little misunderstandings in relationships are to die for.

Nothing happens in this movie. Really slowburning story, but funny as can be, if you dig this kind of tongue in cheek humor ofcourse. This is certainly not a fast straight comedy. The complete opposite. The guy just sits around worrying about his girlfriend having an affair. He sits around at a boring editing job. This endlesly sitting around stuff and the endless thoughts of jealousy are performed brilliantly. Maybe this whining and obsessively worrying will only be really aprreciated by those few who already understand the subtleties of Albert Brooks jokes. But please just give it a shot anyway. If you dont like the first 15 minutes, nothing much will change after that. No problem, you just dont dig this kind of humor. But if you dont try, you might miss out on one of the best slowburning comedies of the entire eighties! I adore the talent of this director and actor Brooks, who can make an entire comedy about nothing else but worrying about his girflriend. Worrying if she is secretly having an affair with complete strangers. An hour and a half full of whining and obsessive worrying. Brilliant, truly brilliant script!

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 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.

Pains me to admit it but I could relate to Albert Brooks' character in parts of this. The swinging back and forth between optimism and despair right after a breakup hit kind of hard. Also: a part late in the film where thin and his sort-of girlfriend sort of argue, and Brooks' character is unable to end it in a way that will leave things fully at peace... that was relatable too.

All that said, the most entertaining parts were probably the sequences where Brooks worked as an editor on what looked like a gloriously stupid sci-fi film starring George Kennedy.

Overall: it's not perfect, and I think it does owe maybe a bit too much to the kind of movies Woody Allen was making around this time. But I did like a good deal of the humour, and a romantic-comedy that investigates the final stages of a relationship is refreshing, considering most standard romantic-comedies focus on the early days.