This movie is phony and doesn't have any real emotion or drama. It's just a star vehicle for Newman (whose character is squeakly clean -- right down to the fact that it is not his character who has knocked up Melinda Dillon, lest he be "bad").
Lee Strasberg was right when he said that Newman didn't live up to his talent, as he walked through too many roles relying on his beauty.
Yeah, I guess Newman just coasted through his whole career. I guess that's why Strasberg's performances are so much better known than Newman's. Huh, go figure. I think you might be confusing Newman with Marlon Brando, who was at the Actor's Studio, certainly squandered a fair amount of his career, and was a REAL pretty-boy (just ask Christian Marquand) in his youth. Nor would I typify this film as a 'star-vehicle' (what does that even mean in a post Mel Gibson / Russell Crowe world?! Don't movie-goers love to see big stars in big roles, where they show us what shirts they wear, or what brand of cigarettes to smoke?), unless you mean to include Sally Field in the definition: Newman was definitely on the wane in 1981, while Field was still flying high as the star of 'Norma Rae'. Yet she plays an incredibly flawed journalist who earns a hard lesson about ethics and integrity. Sorry, but I don't know anyone who ever helped their friend get an abortion get called 'squeaky-clean' for it, and Newman's character is anything but on the surface, even though there's good evidence that he is, after all, a good guy. I'm pretty sure your opinions on the level of acting are shared by nearly nobody, as this is considered one of his better performances, eclipsed only by 'The Verdict', which came out the following year. If you didn't like the film, that's perfectly O.K., but looking for non-existent reasons within the film itself will only lead to frustration.
shareHEY GUY FROM 12 YEARS AGO....YOU SUCK.
share