Dragonfly

I watched this movie on cable because the description said something to the effect of, Danbury Connecticut locations add realism to this ... I was intrigued since I am from Danbury. I was thrilled to see the town I grew up in pretty much as I remember it. Part of the reason I left Danbury was that it grew too large and lost the small town feel that made it special. Here it was again highlighted in this movie. While the plot and acting could have been better, they were not that bad. For me it was the trip down memory lane seeing businesses and neighborhoods that I frequented regularly emphasized indirectly in this film. That part I rate an 8. I am hoping to find this film still in print somewhere so I may share this same thrill with other members of my family. Until now I never thought of a movie being a source of entertainment for a reason other than the plot and acting.

A young mental patient, just released from the hospital, returns to his hometown in the hopes of locating the remains of his family. Slightly pedestrian account, with a thin and overly-sensitive plot which goes around in circles, does get a big boost from lovely Susan Sarandon as a woman who becomes involved. In the central role, hard-working but bland Beau Bridges fails to register. Having come from a Hollywood family, actor Beau Bridges got off to a stumbling start in teen flicks like "Village of the Giants" and "The Explosive Generation", but by the early 1970s was appearing in acclaimed films such as "Gaily, Gaily" and "The Landlord". However, he never quite found his niche in character parts--and he doesn't have the dynamics needed for a leading man. He flounders in this drama (also known as "One Summer Love"), and was certainly not helped by Gilbert Cates' by-the-numbers direction. * from ****

This is a small film that got a limited release and is not remembered by many today despite the two name stars. Bridges plays a young man released from a mental home who sets off to find his family and fill in the blanks of his checkered history. Sarandon plays a woman he meets along the way who becomes practically smitten with him. This is one of the oddest parts of the film as Bridges' character seems so unstable and aimless that it's hard to understand Sarandon's motivations. The film has a slow pace and hardly any dramatic highpoints. Even the finale leaves much to be desired. The makers and the performers try hard but in the end, it's strictly a mixed bag. Sarandon fans will be disappointed as she doesn't have much beyond the typical 1970s' love interest role here.

One of the few in-house productions of American International Pictures during its last few years, "Dragonfly" (a.k.a. "One Summer Love", as it currently plays on cable) was one of its first attempts to cater to a more mainstream audience without any exploitive elements. It's not a bad movie - the premise is one with promise (even keeping us very interested for its first part as it slowly peels away the mystery clouding the situation.) And Sarandon is pretty good as a sympathetic yet very human woman. Bridges is pretty uneven - his symptoms don't seem constant for any real mental illness - but occasionally he really nails it. The problem is that it's hard to sympathize, or even understand, a character who himself seems confused and not sure of what he wants most of the time! It's also jarring how the movie starts off to what seems to be a focus on the relationship between Bridges and Sarandon, then suddenly writes her out of almost the rest of the movie. The climatic moment also has some unfortunate unintended laughs. Still, I can't say that I found the movie, uneven as it is, boring at any moment.

I saw this movie recently on an old VHS tape and thought Beau Bridges did a wonderfully intense job portraying Jesse, the young man trying to find out the real truth about why he was institutionalized in his early teens. Film is good about not revealing the truth until the uttermost end, so there is a lot of suspense in finding out whether what you guessed is the reason is the real reason.

The story and scenes between the characters could have been developed much better than they were. Also the powers that be on this film could have developed the relationship scenes a bit better (as in MORE scenes) between Susan Sarandon's (who is very good in this too with what she is given) and Beau Bridges' characters.

All in all an okay movie which could have been so much better if the writers/producers had tried harder at scene development.

I give it a 5 overall and an almost 8 or 9 for Beau Bridges' GREAT acting---really made me feel for his character, plus I have a huge bias for him at this age---so darn cute!