Circle of Two

In Toronto, the fifteen year-old student and aspirant writer Sarah Norton (Tatum O'Neal) meets the sixty year old painter Ashley St. Clair (Richard Burton) in a cafeteria while hiding from her stalker boy-friend Paul (Michel Wincott). The former successful Ashley has stopped painting for ten years and accepts to read the poems that Sarah has written. They start seeing each other at his studio and Sarah falls in love with him. Ashley feels a platonic love for Sarah that becomes his muse and he decides to paint again. When Paul snoops Sarah in Ashley's studio, he misunderstands their relationship and tries to rape Sarah in a cornfield but she self-defends with a stone hitting Paul in the head. Sarah's parents discover that their daughter has secret encounters with Ashley and lock her in her room. On her sixteenth birthday, Sarah finds that Ashley has moved to New York and decides to travel to the Big Apple to meet him.

"Circle of Two" is a wonderful and sensitive unconventional love story. The last work of Jules Dassin discloses this coming of age romance between a teenager and an old man through a tight direction without any sort of exploitation despite the polemic theme. Tatum O'Neal is fantastic in the role of a girl that falls in love with a man that could be her grandfather. The soundtrack gives an additional touch of class to this wonderful film. My vote is eight.

Title (Brazil): "Círculo de 2 Amantes" ("Círcle of 2 Lovers")

This is a wonderful and tender story about a young woman coming of age and within that, finding a deeper love within her soul with a man who just happens to be older. The beauty of this tale is there was never a physical relationship between the two but more importantly, this movie shows and demonstrates if this were a perfect work, how pure and blind love can and maybe should be.

Tatum played this part perfectly as a young teenage girl falling in love with a man, Richard Burton who showed and gave her respect, love, honesty and trust. Richard plays an out of work painter who was on his last leg when this bright light came into his world. This light shined so loudly it overwhelmed him and in doing so, sparked new life into his tired and somewhat forgotten soul. He begins to paint again and thus he is reborn.

I personally enjoyed and love what this movie stands for. If you have ever loved and lost and yet never ever forgotten the truth that was there when you felt such powerful and sincere emotions, then this movie is indeed for you.

This movie belongs right along with such classics as Roman Holiday, A portrait of Jenny and any movie where color and age are timeless.

Nowadays, sixty years old isn't as old as sixty was thirty-five years ago. Sixty in 1981 was what seventy is now. That being explained, I don't really know why Richard Burton's character in Circle of Two was written to be sixty years old, when he has a romance with a fifteen-year-old Tatum O'Neal. If he was supposed to be fifty, the age difference would have been significant enough, and Burton was only fifty-five when he made the movie. They gave him great shocks of white hair to make him look especially old.

If you don't like May-December romances, don't watch this movie. I definitely don't have a problem with them, so I actually liked this movie. It's very tastefully done, and everyone's attitude on the love affair is understandable. In one scene, Tatum's mother says, "He's old enough to be your father!" Tatum replies, "He's old enough to be your father." It's hilarious and troublesome and confusing at the same time. I like movies like this, so if you're like me, go ahead and add Circle of Two, to your weekend watch list.

Kiddy Warning: Obviously, you have control over your own children. However, due to adult content, I wouldn't let my kids watch it. Also, there may or may not be a rape scene (but it has nothing to do with Richard Burton).

When I read the back of the video sleeve and realised what Circle Of Two was actually about, I was left rather worried regarding what I was about to watch. A 60 year-old artist falling in love with a 15 year-old girl? The very thought of it made me a bit queasy, a bit nervous. But I couldn't believe for one minute that a dignified actor like Richard Burton would be caught in a film passionately romping around in bed with a teenaged girl. Nor could I believe that a promising young starlet like Tatum O'Neal would stoop to such scenes. Once I got round to watching the film nothing about it was as exploitative, tasteless or controversial as I'd initially feared. It wasn't particularly good either. Just a quiet, forgettable love story about ill-suited lovers.... absorbing enough to sit through but not provocative enough to stick in the memory for long afterwards.

Sarah Norton (Tatum O'Neal) is a bright kid from an affluent family. She occasionally skips school and does "daring" things like sneaking into porn movie screenings at the local adult-movie theatre. She meets a local artist, Ashley St. Clair (Richard Burton), who was once a renowned painter but hasn't painted a stroke in ten years after the critics were unjustly savage towards his work. Somehow, an unlikely affection develops between them which soon blossoms into full-scale love. But Sarah's parents disapprove and take vehement measures to drive a wedge between the mismatched lovers.

The nearest the film comes to over-stepping the mark is a scene in which a naked O'Neal offers herself to Burton in his art studio, upon which he angrily orders her to get dressed. Luckily, Jules Dassin makes the scene quite sensitive and tasteful, directing it as a moment of character development rather than an opportunity for titillation. Throughout the remainder of the film, the controversial issues and themes are dealt with relatively tamely. Burton is pretty good as the artist whose age and experience warn him that to fall in love with the girl - and let her love him in return - is bound to end unhappily. It was probably a hard role to play, but he is honest and convincing in each scene. O'Neal as the teenaged love interest is OK, if a bit wooden with some of her delivery. Michael Wincott (later a scene stealer as Guy of Gisbourne in Robin Hood: Prince Of Thieves) has a small but significant role as O'Neal's outrageously jealous ex-boyfriend. Circle Of Two is a fair story of forbidden passion and unworkable love. It works its way through a series of sad and poignant events to an inevitably forlorn conclusion, weaving a story that is interesting without ever being irresistible. It ain't a classic, but it's not too bad.

I can't say I agree with the writer from England, but then we may have a different view on this film. To start with, I feel that this was one of Tatum's best performances of her film career. While only 17 during filming, she showed the acting ability of an "old soul" and her depth of feeling, not to mention her wit, was outstanding. Richard Burton played his part in an appropriately low keyed manner, which only added to the romantic air of the whole movie. The subject matter is hard for many people to swallow, but the fact of life is that while justice is supposed to be blind, love most certainly is and it can play hell with those involved. If it weren't for the age difference, we would be discussing a later version of Love Story. Maybe the O'Neals are trying to corner the market on love stories. One other item that I disagree with is during the nude scene, Tatum didn't actually offer herself to Richard, but she asked that he paint her in the nude as he had done with a prior lover. Be ye male or female, A Circle Of Two, is certainly made for those die-hard romantics, so if you have seen Love Story and didn't much care for it, then you won't care for this one either. No sex and the nude scene is very brief, so don't watch it for either of those items. However, if you love a good love story and you aren't put off by peoples age, then pull up and chair and rent this one, if you are lucky enough to find it.