COUSINS
A film review by Neal Weidenhofer
Copyright 1989 Neal Weidenhofer
Well, I just saw the best film I've seen in a LONG time and since I've not seen it mentioned here, I'll pass on my impressions. I'm giving it a good solid +3 on the -4 to +4 scale. The name of this marvel is COUSINS and I wish I had seen it when it first came out so I could have gone back tonight instead of seeing it for the first time.
The key word to describe this movie is "pure." In the first place, it's a pure romance--it even has a happy ending--which works. The characters are also pure in the sense of being archetypes.
First we have our hero, a pure romantic whose father says he "failed at everything except life." The horrendous miscasting that gave this role to Ted Danson is the only factor that keeps this from being a +4 movie. I liked CHEERS and I can even tolerate some of his other movies but a romantic lead in a role that requires a modicum of sensitivity and depth--not a chance.
Next comes the leading lady magnificently played by Isabelle Rossallini (who almost makes up for Danson.) She is a pure "good woman" who is ready to abandon her own happiness because her husband and daughter need her. Inside her is another pure romantic trying to get out.
Married to them are Sean Young playing a purely vapid career girl who doesn't have a clue what she wants out of life and William Petersen, the purest *ssh*le it's been my pleasure to watch in as long as I can remember. Got a problem? Use your fists.
And last but not by a damn sight least is Lloyd Bridges playing the most delightfully pure dirty old man I have ever seen. Would *your* grandfather share his porno magazines with *you*?
It's the screenplay though that makes this movie a pure delight. It's a purely brilliant adaptation of COUSIN, COUSINE--almost a pure translation. A very witty story of two people whose spouses are having an affair and begin seeing each other, purely as friends, for consolation and a certain amount of revenge and end up, almost against their wills, actually falling in love.
Mix these ingredients with direction that's adequate with occasional flashes of brilliance and camera work that includes some truly awesome Canadian scenery and you get a movie that's bound to appeal to the pure romantic in you. Take him or her to see it.
Neal Weidenhofer
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