steiner-sam

It's a cynical drama about American politics of the early 1970s set in a California race for a U. S. Senate seat. Crocker Jarmon (Don Porter) is an experienced, well-liked three-term Republican Senator running against Bill McKay (Robert Redford), the progressive lawyer son of former Governor John McKay (Melvyn Douglas). Bill is largely alienated from his father and did not aspire to political office until he is recruited by Marvin Lucas (Peter Boyle), a Democratic operative looking for someone to run against Jarmon.

The film follows McKay's candidacy through election night, depicting a principled man slowly ground down by the party's need to craft a palatable message that offends no one, while capitalizing on its candidate's good looks. Remember, Reford made this movie three years after tumultuous 1968, while Richard Nixon was President, and the U. S. was still in Vietnam (though Vietnam isn't mentioned). There's even a prescient hint of a proto-Bill Clinton near the film's end, after McKay arrives late at a meeting, after being preoccupied with a female campaign worker.

"The Candidate" is fun (or sad) for those of us who remember those days, but it's horribly dated in 2025. The cult of personality had not yet made the party structures almost meaningly, and candidates still felt the need to spout platitudes to avoid offense. How times have changed. Redford and Boyle do a commendable job, and the cinematography effectively captures the atmosphere of political campaigns in the 1960s and early 1970s.

It's a farcical romance set in 1960s Greenwich Village covering the first two weeks of a young couple's marriage. Paul Pratter (Robert Redford) is a straight-laced young lawyer just married to vivacious and lusty Corie Banks (Jane Fonda). For the first six days of their marriage, they never leave their Plaza Hotel room. Then they take up life in a fifth-floor walk-up apartment in the Village, with an eccentric Albanian man (Charles Boyer) living on the sixth floor. Corie's mother, Ethel (Mildred Natwick), tries to encourage the young couple as they encounter their great personality differences, and experiences her own unsettling experiences with the upstairs tenant.

"Barefoot in the Park" is fun, but very dated. Jane Fonda's Corie has no hint of the feminism that was erupting in the 1960s, but the chemistry with Redford is obvious. Herbert Edelman has a nice little role as the telephone repairman. There's nothing serious about this comedy, as it's always obvious that things will work out in the end. The film's roots in a stage play are evident. It's a good glimpse of the early Robert Redford.

It's a romantic fantasy set in modern times, both within and outside an unnamed American city. David (Colin Farrell) and Sarah (Margot Robbie) meet at a mutual friend's wedding that they each attended alone, having each rented cars from an unusual and unique agency that pushes its own GPS product. After the wedding, they meet "accidentally" and then embark on a fantastical journey together, which leads them to reflect on what has made them loners who are bad at relationships.

It doesn't really work. Some of the individual flashbacks are engaging, but the whole film doesn't hang together. The ending, in my view, was unfortunate and way too predictable. Robbie and Farrell don't really sizzle, even though they spend an awful lot of time gazing at each other. The secondary characters don't have enough screen time to develop real personalities. I frequently checked my watch to see how much more I had to endure.