ADDICTED TO LOVE
A film review by Scott Renshaw
Copyright 1997 Scott Renshaw
(Warner Bros.) Starring: Meg Ryan, Matthew Broderick, Kelly Preston, Tcheky Karyo. Screenplay: Robert Gordon. Producers: Jeffrey Silver and Bobby Newmyer. Director: Griffin Dunne. MPAA Rating: R (adult themes, sexual situations, profanity) Running Time: 101 minutes. Reviewed by Scott Renshaw.
Begin with the fact that ADDICTED TO LOVE is about two people stalking their respective ex-lovers, and you'll see that it isn't exactly your conventional romantic comedy. That's a strong statement when you consider that "conventional" and "romantic comedy" are virtually synonymous where major studios are concerned. Perhaps more than any other genre, the romantic comedy thrives on predictability, in much the same way that romance novels thrive on predictability. ADDICTED TO LOVE is a film which takes risks within that genre, which makes it a rarity. The fact that so many of those risks pay off makes it particularly intriguing.
ADDICTED TO LOVE stars Matthew Broderick as Sam, an astronomer living a simple small-town life with long-time girlfriend Linda (Kelly Preston) before she accepts a teaching fellowship in New York. Sam contents himself with the knowledge that she'll be back in just a few months, until he receives a "Dear John" letter from Linda ending their relationship. Rather than take the break-up lying down, Sam races off to New York, where he discovers Linda living with a French restaurateur named Anton (Tcheky Karyo). Taking up residence in the abandoned building across the street, Sam begins spying on Linda and Anton, waiting for their relationship to fall apart as he is sure it will. That is before he meets Maggie (Meg Ryan), Anton's ex-fiancee, who helps herself to sharing Sam's makeshift abode. Maggie doesn't want Anton back -- she wants revenge, and making Anton suffer falls neatly into Sam's plans as well. Together the two plot to bring Anton to his knees, but unexpectedly find their joint mission bringing them closer together.
Perhaps the most impressive thing about ADDICTED TO LOVE is how it makes its tricky premise work. Screenwriter Robert Gordon could have gone for all-out farce in which the motivations of the characters mattered less than their wacky actions; he could have made Linda and Anton so one-dimensionally villainous that they seemed to deserve whatever they got. In short, he could have written THE FIRST SIGNIFICANT-OTHERS' CLUB. Instead, he tries something rather dangerous: he makes everyone human. Sam is a man whose obsession is less pathological than scientific -- he keeps watching Linda because her behavior just doesn't make sense based on his rational observations. Maggie, on the other hand, is so deeply hurt that all she can think about is hurting Anton right back, her feelings so intense that she pulls Sam into them with her. Even Anton is a complicated creation, with Tcheky Karyo giving a surprisingly engaging performance as a man who is more self-absorbed than malicious. ADDICTED TO LOVE draws comedy and emotion from understanding of the people involved. Their actions don't automatically render them unsympathetic because we are allowed to know why they do what they do.
It was also a risk pairing Broderick and Ryan, since both have made careers out of characters notable largely for their geniality. Broderick doesn't stray far from that persona, though he is still very appealing as a decent guy doing some indecent things. It is Ryan who stretches the most, perhaps even farther than she stretched in the straight drama of COURAGE UNDER FIRE. This is no Sally Albright she is playing -- there isn't a shred of romantic wistfulness left in Maggie. Her comic lines are savage and bitter, allowing Ryan to display a darker comedic edge which previous roles hadn't given her a chance to show. Her performance gives the romance unexpected depth, lending poignancy to scenes like a romantic interlude with Broderick in which each participant is thinking about the one he or she _really_ loves.
None of this would matter much, of course, if ADDICTED TO LOVE weren't also funny. There are plenty of quirky laughs in Gordon's script, from a sweet scene between Ryan and Broderick providing dialogue for a conversation between Anton and Linda to a stampede of cockroaches through a restaurant. Griffin Dunne's direction provides the one jarring flaw in ADDICTED TO LOVE, creating an awkward rhythm in those comic moments of Maggie and Sam's plan against Anton which isn't always in synch with the character development. The broad physical humor is sometimes out of place in a story which does such a good job of creating characters struggling to heal emotionally. Then again, that is just one more way in which ADDICTED TO LOVE doesn't take you exactly where you might expect to go. In case it really matters, ADDICTED TO LOVE is a conventional enough romantic comedy that it provides a suitably happy ending. Beyond that, let it surprise you.
On the Renshaw scale of 0 to 10 stalk characters: 7.
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