Buscando a Mr. Goodbar

Looking For Mr. Goodbar isn't exactly the kind of feel good movie you might want to pop in on a rainy Sunday afternoon. It's heavy - almost suffocatingly so at times. What it does offer is a great chance for Diane Keaton to play a very different kind of character. Her Theresa is nothing like her Annie Hall or Nina Banks and that's refreshing to see. It's also an excellent time capsule of New York City life in the 70's.

With an upbeat 70's disco soundtrack (odds are, you'll know most of the tunes), Looking For Mr. Goodbar tracks a schoolteacher looking for love, passion, and satisfaction anyway she can find it. Sometimes it leads to heartbreak, sometimes it leads to danger, but it always leads to depression for the audience.

It's been a long time since I've seen a film this aggressively depressing and cynical and, to be honest, it's hard for me to process. On one hand, Keaton's work is exceptional, but on the other hand, it's a pretty tough slog to sit through. One needs to be in the right frame of mind to make it through.

It was searching for a copy of this that led me to a source of otherwise unavailable films but the lengthy running time has put me off watching it, for some time. Also, I cannot now remember what got me intrigued by the title anyway. In any event the thing is now watched. It seems to me there is a bit too much of everything here, certainly Richard Gere and Tuesday Weld who are well over the top. Keaton is fine but her character begins to irritate halfway through, what with all her neediness and simultaneously thrusting of people aside, her wonderfully virtuous deaf classes, adding nothing whatsoever and the growing tedium of the shadowy scenes of sex and drugs. Brave of Keaton to take the role but if only Brooks could have kept it to something more like 90 minutes we would surely have had a much more succinct and effective movie. Too many characters to little effect and too many downers and not enough uppers.

This was an interesting movie and it shows how the world has changed in the last 30 years. The attitudes (between men and women, gays and straights), the language used back then, the social atmosphere (bar scene) of the late 1970s, even the financial differences--she's able to afford an apartment in Manhattan on a teachers salary! (even though it has roaches this still isn't possible in 2006). All of these things made the movie interesting for me. I also imagine it must have been a very shocking movie back then. I was 8 years old when it came out so I didn't see it in the theater but I would have liked to see it in a theater just to see how people took it back then. I would have liked to walk out of the theater and hear the conversations going on as people walked to their cars. Did people like it back then? Did they think it was shocking? Did they think it accurately portrayed a type of person they maybe knew or were themselves back then? Also, Diane Keaton was very good in it and it's very interesting to see a young Richard Gere and Tom Berenger when their careers were just beginning.

Thersea Dunn (Diane Keaton) is a dedicated teacher by day. By night she cruises bars picking up men for increasingly violent sexual encounters. This leads to drug abuse and starts affecting her job. Can she stop?

A VERY negative view of the swinging 70s before AIDS came about in the 80s. I originally saw this on TV when I was in high school where it was cut to ribbons and virtually incomprehensible. A revival theatre did show it a few months later so I got to see it uncut on the big screen. I was a little too young to understand it fully (a 10th grader doesn't know much about singles bars:)) but the message came through loud and clear--sex + drugs = death. There's more to it than that--they get into Dunn's family life and you see she grew up feeling neglected with an obnoxious loud father and a meek mother. There's also her sister Katherine (Tuesday Weld) who is also addicted to sex and drugs. Basically this is a very depressing film full of unpleasant characters and situations. Keaton is great in her role--she totally buried her "Annie Hall" image with this. She also did nude scenes which she previously refused to do. Weld was superb (and Oscar-nominated) for her role. It's also fun to see Richard Gere and LeVar Burton before they hit it big. Also a still unknown Tom Berenger pops up at the end in a very disturbing but crucial role. He had guts playing the role he does (I won't give it away). This movie has disappeared due to song rights (I believe) and that's too bad. It IS disturbing but an accurate portrayal of the dark side of the singles bars in the 1970s.

The movie really gets the whole 1970s drug sniffing, gay liberation, pro swinger pre aids lifestyle down, and then closes with what may be one of the most depressing endings ever shot for a movie. As we all know, Diane Keaton is the straight laced teacher by day, and bar hopper by night. Her Catholic background and domineering father all contribute to her rampant promiscuity, and she ends up paying for it in the end. Sad, because the sexual revolution of the time gave women the right to do what she does in the film without being called whores, and then she had to pay for it. Such a good flick though, although it could have used a little editing for time. See it, and decide for yourself. Highly recommended, and perfect depiction of a life that really is impossible to imagine in this day and age.