Fresh off of The Slumber Party Massacre (1982), Amy Holden Jones turned to romantic drama and brought in Jamie Lee Curtis, who was looking for a change from horror herself. The story of a 40-year-old married man's affair with a 22-year-old woman may not be groundbreaking, but it is touching and felt authentic.
It's a quiet film but had several other positives, starting with Curtis, who aside from being gorgeous, showing her acting ability in a film filled with emotion. There are several steamy erotic scenes that threatened to become gratuitous, but I thought they were tastefully done (especially by today's standards) and integral to the story. That's what I'm telling myself anyway. The affair is echoed in letters that Curtis's character finds among her dead mother's things; it turns out she too had an affair, this one over many years with a man who truly loved her, and who was essentially in Curtis's position, the one on the outside. It's a little contrived but as Curtis sometimes uses words (and even writes an entire letter) out of the man's tender letters to her mother, we can see the commonality in the emotions of all affairs, and the impossible position they put everyone in.
There is also an interesting hint of abuse Curtis's character suffered at the hands of her father as a child; I loved the subtlety with how this was done, even if the way Matt Clark played the drunken rage of the man in the present was a tad hammy. James Keach is reasonably good as the married man, the one who wants to believe he's being "honest" by saying he's married up-front, but who is a massive hypocrite, and playing with the lives of everyone around him. I loved seeing Bud Cort and Amy Madigan in small parts too, as well as a few scenes around Venice, California and good old Randy's Donuts. Very nice ending in the graveyard too. Not quite sharp or deep enough to truly love, but a smaller film worth seeing.
