As a tribute to Neil Simon, who died August 26 aged 91, I perhaps could have picked better than this, as it's an adaptation of Bruce Jay Friedman's story 'A Change of Plan' and not an original. Elaine May directs the material unflinchingly, especially the painful scene in the restaurant (finally) when Charles Grodin breaks it off with wife of five days Jeannie Berlin (who's great) in favour of flighty Cybill Shepherd. Indeed, May shoots in long takes, for example the ripe scene in which Grodin 'deals his cards' to her father Eddie Albert and mother Audra Lindley. Berlin's character emerges in fact as the only likeable one (despite the way she eats egg salad), and we're left thinking Grodin has just made another mistake...
May had just herself appeared as a ditsy, clumsy girl in the fabulous
A New Leaf...
Owen Roizman's very natural photography delivers a fabulous shot as Cybill appears with the sun behind her head, shown
here. As to the car. I
think it's a 1968 Triumph TR 250...
Nothing shouts 1972 more than this outfit...
Jeannie Berlin is Elaine May's daughter, and recently was in
Café Society and
Inherent Vice after a long sabbatical, the 1975
Sheila Levine is Dead and Living in New York, with Roy Scheider, one of her previous appearances (commercially unavailable). She and Albert were both Oscar nominated.
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