Micki + Maude

I've been punishing myself watching all Dudley Moore's movies from the 80's. His usual unsympathetic movie persona is here: A successful man in his field despite lacking professionalism that inevitably advances on his leading ladies while running and screaming through corridors in labored plots.

Blake Edwards tries to sugarcoat Moore's dubious moral compass in this farce. Moore is a caring husband/lover that desperately wants to be a family man but shamelessly cheats his love interests. This dissonance in values never goes away and kinda ruins the lighthearted tone of this comedy.

I loved Ann Reinking as the innocent perfect wife. The really good acting on her part that kept this movie entertaining. Amy Irving's is not exactly a counterpoint and could be more fleshed out. Moore does a competent job being more awake in the role than in his later movies.

The plot is nothing special and there's a unfortunate shadow of Arthur (1981) in the relationship between Rob and Leo mirroring Arthur and Hobson that is underdeveloped and seems tackled into the movie. Curiously, in Lovesick(1983) Moore's character also has an older figure that his character listen to and try to sort his problems.

Not a bad movie, but not good either.

Dudley Moore is happily married to Anne Reinking who right now doesn't want kids. Dudley meets a sweet woman Amy Irving and before you know it she's pregnant. Dudley decides to plan to leave Anne but guess what she's pregnant too. So Dudley becomes a bigamist. Funny, especially the hospital scene. The ending is kind of lame but this is still a great movie.

Five years after the success of "10", Blake Edwards and Dudley Moore hit another bullseye with MICKI & MAUDE, a stylish and very funny romantic comedy about a newsmagazine reporter (Moore) married to a workaholic attorney named Micki (Ann Reinking) who longs to be a father and begins an affair with an attractive and funny cellist named Maude (Amy Irving) who he gets pregnant. He agrees to divorce Micki and marry Maude until Micki announces she is also pregnant. Since Micki's pregnancy is high risk, he doesn't want to stress her out so he marries Maude without divorcing Micki and that's when his life becomes complicated to no end. The three stars are absolutely wonderful in their roles. Moore won a Golden Globe for Best Actor in a Comedy. Richard Mulligan, George Gaynes, and Wallace Shawn offer strong support as Moore's boss and as the ladies' doctors. Though the film is a little on the long side, it remains thoroughly entertaining from beginning to end with one of Moore's best performances.

"Micki + Maude" is a wonderful comedy with a great comic performace by Dudley Moore as a man who has an incredible mess on his hands. Moore plays Rob Salinger, a TV reporter married to Micki (Ann Reinking), an assistant district attorney. Moore is desperate to have a baby but Micki doesn't want kids at the moment because she wants to work at her job so she can become a judge. One day Rob meets Maude (Amy Irving), a cellist he interviews for a report. When Micki goes out of town on business, Rob begins to have a fling with Maude. Then comes the shocking news. Maude announces that she's pregnant! Rob asks her to marry him and that he'll divorce Micki. When Micki gets back in town, Rob meets her for dinner at a restaurant where he plans to break the bad news to her. Then comes even more shocking news. Micki announces that she's pregnant! So what does Rob do now? Easy. He still marries Maude, stays married to Micki, and becomes a bigamist. "Micki + Maude" has lots of big laughs, especially the scenes in the doctors offices and hospital. This is one of director Blake Edwards' best films. The performance by Dudley Moore is a comic tour-de-force. He won a Golden Globe for his work here. Amy Irving and Ann Reinking are terrific too as the women in Moore's life, and there's a great supporting performance by Richard Mulligan (of TV's "Soap" and "Empty Nest") as Moore's boss and best friend who Moore comes to for advice. "Micki + Maude" is a very funny movie for fans of Dudley Moore and Blake Edwards. Only the silly ending keeps this movie from being a "10".

***1/2 (out of four)

Micki+Maude is one of the most satisfying comedies to come out of Hollywood in the 1980's. It is perhaps Blake Edward's last great film, it is also the film in wich Dudley Moore solidified his position as a like-able Romantic Light Comedian worthy of greats like Cary Grant and Jack Lemon. The plot in itself works thanks to a knockout idea, Dudley Moore + 2 wives = Bigamy x Pregnancy. Any theme like that alone would be funny. Handled by one of the all time great American directors, Blake Edwards and starring Cuddly Dudley, it soars. Amy Irving as Micki, and Anne Reinking as Maude are both very enjoyable and frothy charcters, essential to a romantic comedy. One imagines that if he wanted to Edwards could have made this a straight sequel to his hit 10, with Dud reprising his role as George Webber, with Julie Andrews as Micki and Bo Derk as Maude. But Amy Irving and Anne Reinking do just nicely. Michael Le Grand's themes and songs are nice, and the film amounts to a funny and fitting climax. Edwards employs in the fianl scenes lots of Laurel and Hardy imagery and Dud handles this well. Edwards should be proud because not only has he emulated the greatest work of Stan and Ollie with this film, he has created something that in turn will influence generations of Comedy directors. Why on earth this didn't win any Academy Awards i dont know. I can think of an Actor and a Director who thoroughly deserve them.