LOOKING FOR MR. GOODBAR (1977) A Film Review by Ted Prigge Copyright 1998 Ted Prigge
Director: Richard Brooks Writer: Richard Brooks (based on the novel by Judith Rossner) Starring: Diane Keaton, Tuesday Weld, William Atherton, Richard Kiley, Richard Gere, Alan Feinstein, Priscilla Pointer, LeVar Burton, Richard Bright, Tom Berenger
It's obvious what Richard Brooks' intentions were for making "Looking for Mr. Goodbar": he not only wanted to show how leading two lives ultimately results in tragedy, but he also wanted to make a very unsubtle statement against nightclubbing and sleeping with lots of men, an infamous pasttime of the late 70s right up until the explosion of the AIDs virus. Unfortunately as a tale of two lives, it's too ridiculous, and as a condemnation of promiscuous life styles, it's too preachy and ends all too conveniently.
The film's real strength is in how it creates a certain kind of world from a certain kind of perspective. The entire structure and everything that goes on is customized so that it fits that of the film's protagonist, Theresa Dunn (Diane Keaton, the same year she won an Oscar for "Annie Hall"), a young woman who by day is a first grade teacher of deaf kids, and by night is out in the bars, picking up men, taking them back to her flat, and having her way with them.
It's a proposterous situation because the two parts are just too different from one another to be taken seriously, which is part of why we can't totally be swayed by its message, at least in this way. But what the film lacks in literal substance it somewhat makes up in the way in which it's presented. "Looking for Mr. Goodbar" is an incredibly frustrating film to watch because it is told entirely from her perspective, and as such we often see some of her dreams and wishes. Take for example the beginning when we are introduced to her in the classroom learning about how to teach young kids: she imagines everyone in class leaves and that she ends up making out with her teacher (Alan Feinstein), but then we see that it was a daydream, but in the next scene she is actually making love with her teacher in his apartment after class. What is real and what isn't, this film often asks, and we can only answer a little bit later on.
What "Looking for Mr. Goodbar" feels like to the audience is being Theresa watching herself and everything she feels and thinks, and then making a critique about what was done. In the beginning, Theresa lives at home and feels suffocated by everyone around her, especially her ultra-Catholic tyrant of a father, played with gusto by Richard Kiley. As such, these scenes feel claustrophobic and difficult to watch, and when the scene shifts away from the house and her family, one feels like taking a breath of fresh air, just like Theresa probably does.
Once moving out of her family's house, she moves into an apartment building with her sister, Katherine (a glowing Tuesday Weld, who received an Oscar nomination for her role), where she begins to bring various men home. Over the course of the film, there are only about five men we see her with, but they constantly reappear, so much that we can barely keep recollection of them, as Theresa no doubt does. There's James (William Atherton), the clean-cut all-around good guy who her father likes, but who does have a darker side to him like all people. Then there's Tony Lapanto (a pre-fame Richard Gere), an overly-confident schmuck who decides to show up inside her apartment whenever he decides he wants to boink her...or do a bizarre ritual dance.
And of course, there's her job, which she gradually begins to ignore as the film goes on. Although being consumed with it when she first gets her job towards the beginning, the more sex she has and drugs she takes, the less interested in it she becomes, and it's obvious that a balancing act between the two will not be had.
Every now and then we see her aforementioned sister, Katherine, who is always at the opposite end of the poles than Theresa. In the beginning, she's partaking in drugs and group sex while Theresa keeps to her school studies, but by the end, Katherine has cleaned herself up and started anew, while Theresa has redefined herself as a druggie and sex addict.
The ending is, yes, a shock, but it's also cheap and ends only so that the message of the film can be completed. Though I must say that it is a much imitated scene, having been stolen by films like "Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me" and "The Doom Generation," though neither are as good as this is.
Still, "Looking for Mr. Goodbar" leaves the viewer wanted a little bit more, perhaps because it promises to have more depth on the topics of promiscuity and leading a double life. Instead it come off all too fable-like, and often intends to shock us more than it intends to say something very meaningful. But with a great performance from Diane Keaton (who acts very human...and bares a lot more of herself than she normally has, and she was even in the original cast of "Hair"), this film comes off as one of those deeply flawed classics that you don't necessarily enjoy or even like, but you never forget.
MY RATING (out of 4): ***
Homepage at: http://www.geocities.com/Hollywood/Hills/8335/
The review above was posted to the
rec.arts.movies.reviews newsgroup (de.rec.film.kritiken for German reviews).
The Internet Movie Database accepts no responsibility for the contents of the
review and has no editorial control. Unless stated otherwise, the copyright
belongs to the author.
Please direct comments/criticisms of the review to relevant newsgroups.
Broken URLs inthe reviews are the responsibility of the author.
The formatting of the review is likely to differ from the original due
to ASCII to HTML conversion.
Related links: index of all rec.arts.movies.reviews reviews