Head Over Heels

This is one of my favorite films and the lead performance by John Heard is sterling. It is one of the most honest, heartbreaking performances I have ever seen on someone's obsession with another person. Heard plays a state government worker who happens to meet a pretty girl who is on the rebound. They have amazing times together until she decides to move back in with her husband and the young stepdaughter (who she misses). Heard won't let it be over and plans and plots on various ways to get her back. The film is based on Ann Beattie's brilliant novel, CHILLY SCENES OF WINTER (which is the title the movie was released as). I prefer that title to the generic HEAD OVER HEELS. I own a copy of this film and have watched it so many times. Aside from Heard, there is an amazing cast of supporting players: the late, great Ken McMillian, Gloria Grahame (as his crazy mother), Peter Riegert as his deadbeat friend and even Mary Beth Hurt gives a strong performance (I'm not usually a fan of hers). This movie is worth seeking out.

more aptly describes this gem of a movie. Not on cable as much as lesser films, unfortunately.

John Heard is excellent as the unrequited lover, pursuing Laura, a woman in a mediocre marriage, on-again off-again.

What is nice about this film is it sort of imitates life: things happen for no reason, odd characters (Gloria Grahame as mom is very good) People with their own quirks and problems. This was filmed in Salt Lake City Utah, and gives us a nice backdrop of emotion, estranged relationships, hopes for the future.

Peter Riegert (amusing as the unemployed jacket salesman with a physics background). John Heard is quirky and sympathetic at his office job, where he pours a cup of vodka for himself, trying to figure out how to win Laura back. Mary Beth Hurt is also believable, as a confused woman on the fence about her marriage to an A-frame salesman named "Ox".

Joan Micklin Silver is to be commended for her direction in this film. Oddly, I also reviewed an LMN movie she directed, "Hunger Point" with Barbara Hershey. I enjoyed that film. The director seemed to add touches of humanity into that film as well. "Chilly Scenes of Winter" is not to be missed, a nice human film which anyone who has wondered why they can't just have a "normal life", will relate to and enjoy. 9/10.

This whimsical if inconsequential romantic comedy owes a lot of its idiosyncrasies to 'Annie Hall', but while not in the same league as Woody Allen it has an offbeat charm all its own. The original, numbskull title 'Head Over Heels' aptly describes love struck civil servant John Heard's fixation with married girlfriend Mary Beth Hurt. Neither character is particularly complicated, but an eccentric secondary cast and some unpredictable plot lines keep the film buoyant and enjoyable even at its most superficial, although it helps to share some of the couple's featherweight romantic angst. The script was adapted from a novel by Ann Beattie.

I have always loved this film, ever since I first saw it in its re-release as "CSOW" in 1982. I have never seen the "Head Over Heels" version, thankfully. What really hit me then was the parallel to an obsessive love affair I had just experienced. I was dumped by a woman I met at work, and it was several months before I got over it. I had an unfulfilling, drab office job, and an unemployed roommate sharing a house with me.

As a film, what makes this so special is its lack of pretense. The characters are as flawed as they are lovable. The relationship between Charles and his mother is as unsettling as it is comical. Even though Charles is a self-obsessed jerk, his simple devotion to the one wonderful, transcendent thing in his life - the love he and Laura shared - is endearing. He is not so much a stalker as someone who simply cannot bear the thought of returning to the uneventful, empty life he knew before Laura.

I first saw this film in Berkeley around 1982 or '83, wasn't aware until now that it had been made 3 years earlier. At the time, I had already read and was a fan of Beattie's Chilly Scenes of Winter, upon which this is based, and was confused as to why Silver had retitled it "Head Over Heels", but it's not uncommon, and I thoroughly enjoyed the film, especially as it was true to the book. I then heard that Silver had been unsatisfied with the ending, re-cut it for video, and changed the name back to "Chilly Scenes of Winter". I rented the video to see the changes, and discovered that she had cut the last ten minutes or so of the film, which totally changed it from the way the book ends, and, incidentally, lessens the quality of the film. Thus, it went from a 9 to an 8 for me. As for the previous poster, Mary Beth Hurt was in fact in a relationship with William Hurt, to whom John Heard bears a resemblance; MB and William were married for 10 years.