Streisand as Lowenstein?!?!? NO WAY!!
The novel was one of the best I've read and Conroy is a brilliant writer. That said, it deserves to be made into a believable film. Though very few films ever come close to faithfully covering the novel they're based upon, there are some things which just MUST be met, not only to honour the novel, but to make it believable. In this case--Susan Lowenstein!
According to the novel, she was breathtakingly beautiful--though in a subtle way. Right. So they cast Barbra Streisand as her?!? Though very talented, she is not even sublimely beautiful and needs all the help she can get from makeup to pass muster as a halfway attractive woman in her movies...
Nolte was perfect for Tom, but the usually-talented Melinda Dillon was terribly miscast as Savannah, who again, was supposed to be cheerleader-level gorgeous. Her performance was also "walked through", and had none of the depth that the character in the novel has.
But perhaps, the most annoying part for me was the mispronunciation of the name "Lowenstein". It should be "Low-en-stine", not "Low-en-steen". I can't believe that in an industry dominated by Jews, that the studio would let this happen in a film, unless it was a joke--as in the film "Young Frankenstein", where Gene Wilder kept "correcting" people by saying, "It's 'Franken-STEEN'".
Lastly, I think it should be remade as a mini-series which could cover the whole brilliant story of the Wingos.