Just the Way You Are

Given the title, I expected a little more in common with the Billy Joel song of the same name. But while the heroine at one points tells her soon-to-be-ex-boyfriend that he'll find someone to love him just the way he is, her own discovery of that fact is somewhat unclear.

Susan Berlanger (Kristi McNichol) is a pretty, talented flautist, who, unfortunately wears a leg brace. Because her disability is visible, Susan is always treated differently, to the point where she begins to feel that people don't see her, they just see her disability. This is also why her love life has been a disaster. She is all set to marry her gay friend, Frank (Tim Daly), in order to help him hide his sexuality to get ahead in business, but decides not to when she realizes that the marriage won't meet her - or his - sexual needs. After she and her best friend, Lisa (Kaki Hunter) experience a series of disastrous relationships, Susan gets booked on a European tour. While in France, Susan hits upon an idea to find out how people will react if they don't know she is disabled - hide the disability. So, she gets a doctor to put a cast on her bad leg, and heads off to a ski resort. Once there, she meets an assortment of colorful characters: Nicole (Catherine Salviat), a single woman having an affair with a married man who stands her up so that she and Susan have to share a room; Francois Rossignol (Andre Dussollier), a former skier who lost a leg; Peter Nichols (Michael Ontkean), a handsome professional photographer there to shoot a ski competition; and Bobbie (Alexandra Paul), Peter's insufferable girlfriend. As Susan's vacation progresses, she does all kinds of things she's never done before, including winning a ski race. Peter's growing attraction to Susan causes his relationship with Bobbie to break up. And while the feelings are mutual, Susan begins to feel uneasy that she is deceiving Peter, but can't figure out how to tell him about her disability. Will she, or will they part without Peter ever knowing?

The premise is intriguing, in that the only way Susan can find out how people will feel about her is by hiding her disability. And yet, once she does that, at some point, she will have to come clean about it. Unfortunately, her revelation is done in such an anticlimactic way, that the viewer is left unsure what, if anything, she has learned as a result of her stay at the ski resort. Also, the movie has a disjointed feel to it, leaving the viewer wondering what Susan's bad relationships in America had to do with her adventures in France. Fortunately, the film moves along at a good pace, the action is fun, and the characters are likable, so you don't care too much that it doesn't have the depth it could. But it did leave me wondering how much better it could have been had the writers decided to explore more of Susan's self discovery.

The acting, overall, was good. McNichol never fails to give a pleasant performance, and she makes Susan likable in spite of her shortcomings. Her injection of humor into Susan's situation is exceptionally well done. Ontkean makes a wonderful leading man, playing Peter as someone who definitely looks beneath the surface and who is far more interested in what he finds there. Salviat and Dussollier are delightful as people with distinctly European sensibilities, who completely confuse Susan. Hunter does a nice job with Lisa, giving us a woman who knows her shortcomings, and has learned to live with them. The only weak performance was Alexandra Paul as Bobbie, who was so one dimensional that it was painful. While Bobbie was indeed shallow and self absorbed, a good portrayal of her would have given the viewer some sympathy for her losing her man. Paul's performance makes you want to applaud as she stamps off after throwing her final tantrum. The rest of the supporting cast does a good job of keeping things light.

Visually, it's a lovely film, especially the ski resort, which has an air of leisure and celebration completely appropriate to the action taking place there.

Overall, this is a fun film, and a very enjoyable one, but it still leaves the nagging question of how much better it could have been had it paused to do a little more exploration of Susan's self discovery, and shown you that she was indeed lovable just the way she was.

Kristy McNichol gives a good if uneven performance as a crippled flautist--working her way through a series of romantic losers here at home--who travels to a French ski-resort and gets a bright idea: she replaces her cumbersome leg-brace with a cast and finds guys wanting her sexually for the first time. Bumpy romantic comedy begins well, but is really two different pictures, with Kristy's musician going from shyly seductive girl to mercurial, exasperating kid. There are some savvy moments, but mostly in the quietly charming first hour. Once in France, where McNichol hooks up with incredibly patient photographer Michael Ontkean, the filmmakers get too silly, replacing the satiric wit with cheap, blurry sentiment and a pointless discotheque sequence that goes on...and on. **1/2 from ****

In New York City, Susan Berlanger (Kristy McNichol) is a concert flutist with a lame leg. Gay investment banker and friend Frank Bantam (Tim Daly) had proposed a marriage of convenience and moving them to Texas. Her best friend Lisa Elliott is a dancer. Jack is her telephone answering service and wants a date despite never met her. Sam Carpenter asks for a date with Lisa but falls for Susan instead. Somehow, her bum leg always get in the way. While on an European tour, she convinces a doctor to put a leg cast on her and goes to a ski resort pretending to have a leg injury. Photographer Peter Nichols (Michael Ontkean) is taken with her convinced that she's hiding a secret.

This movie is split in two. For the first part, the movie introduces three romantic possibilities for Susan. That's plenty enough to last a whole rom-com movie. She has a best friend. The whole movie is set up but it's really only a set up to introduce the premise. The premise could have been introduced with fewer characters and a shorter time. In fact, Ontkean is introduced after over forty minutes and he's the romantic partner. That's halfway into the movie. It's too late and his meet cute is inferior to both Jack and Sam. There is a cheesy music montage and that's fun. I do like the second half. I just wish that it gets there quicker.

I have always loved this movie. Give it a shot and don't rely on the snide reviews on here. This movie is not suppose to be Schindler's List. Now over 20 years later the movie is now available on DVD, I got mine from Moviesunlimited.com. It has been remastered and is in widescreen format. This movie accomplishes just what it is suppose to, a breezy romantic comedy with an original plot. Kristy is wonderful and Michel Ontkean fresh from his groundbreaking role in "Making Love" is not only HOT but a gentle caring man in this role. Another reviewer stated that they didn't like it when McNicole was more "kid like" in the later half of the movie. Well of course is she like a child, she has been in a leg brace (due to post polio infection) and she never had a normal childhood, so of course she is going to be somewhat childlike doing things she has never done before. If you are looking for a good rainy day movie then watch "Just the Way you are" it's a good flick that leaves you feeling happy for the characters and makes you also look at how you treat others and how others treat you, without making it a 2 1/2 hour bore fest of background story and intellectual crap.

I'll start with the positive: it takes place in the Alps, so the scenery is magnificent (especially the hot-air balloon scene). Kristy McNicol is just adorable in this movie. You can't help rooting for her. And the overall message is quite positive ( you have to accept yourself the way you are and other people will love you for it)

But...the first 45 minutes of the movie are a bit useless. She has 3 love interests who bring absolutely nothing to the rest of the movie. She's a concert flutist, but she could have had any job that would bring her to Europe. The script is pretty cheesy overall.

But it brought me back to the mid-80's, when I was a teenager...the hair, the colourful clothes, the synthesizers... nice little movie!