Strapless (1989)
Grade: 69
Lillian (Blair Brown) is vacationing in Italy by herself. She is also beautiful, successful, single and unattached. In a movie this is inevitably a setup for a new romance. Raymond (Bruno Ganz), an older, well-dressed man with an accent, approaches her in a Church. He follows her around, asking ever more personal questions. Lillian is secretly pleased, and offers only the most perfunctory resistance to his queries. Raymond manages to get lunch with her, and even makes an appointment with her at his hotel. But as she is about to meet him, she has a change of heart. She sees him standing at hotel's entrance, waiting for her like a dog waits for his master. Perhaps alarms are going off in her head.
Lillian is an expatriot of the U.S., now working as a government-paid doctor in England. She shares a flat with her sister Amy (Bridget Fonda), who doesn't look anything like her. Amy is not employed, sponges off Lillian, and paints the town with her boyfriend-of-the-month, but this at least gives Lillian company and a social life.
Lillian returns to her life in England. Soon, she finds a large, beautiful, expensive horse outside her flat. Raymond has tracked her down to continue their courtship. She tries to be firm with Raymond, but he is patient and persistent. She nearly agrees to marry him, but stands him up at the Courthouse altar. Instead, she lives with him at a house he has apparently rented.
Raymond likes to ask questions, but doesn't like to talk, especially about his profession. He makes evasive references to being a bullion dealer. He takes her gambling, loses significant money, and can't pay the bill. Lillian has to write a check, and we see the flaw in Raymond's character: he's not responsible.
Despite this incident, Lillian marries Raymond. Soon Raymond is fleeing creditors under the pretense of doing business abroad, leaving Lillian to pay his debts. Lillian investigates Raymond, visiting his parents and discovering another abandoned wife (Raymond is a bigamist).
Lillian returns to her old flat with her sister, who is more slovenly than ever and now pregnant. Lillian lectures Amy, as if she was her mother. Miraculously, Amy's character is transformed, and she cleans up the house and her act, and even becomes a dress designer (with a thing for "Strapless" dresses).
There are some sub-plots involving Lillian's work at the hospital. Mr. Clark (Gary O'Brien) is her cancer patient, whose decline is realistically portrayed.
The ending is a bit flat. Lillian agrees to organize a charity event, and gives a lengthy speech to fellow doctors that wins thunderous applause. At the charity auction, Amy has designed all the dresses. Yawn.
"Strapless" is a woman's movie. There is a plot, but it serves mostly to develop the relationships between Lillian and her lover, her sister, and her patient. There's lots of close-ups and no car chases or crashes. It has the feel of a TV movie. But, the film is well directed and scripted.
http://members.tripod.com/~Brian_Koller/movies.html
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