Snapshots

A lost little gem, that I'm glad I found! Burt Reynolds and Julie Christie in a movie together, who knew? Romantic story! Set in Amsterdam! Charming, I recommend this one! I was smiling in the end! Bravo!

For those that are long time Burt Reynolds fans, this movie is unique. For the first time in many years, Burt was forced to act instead of being a sexy model who could spew lines on cue. Sadly, Burt doesn't portray a aging hippie really well. It isn't the acting that is so bad. it is the writing. Scene changes at the very beginning of the movie confuses, then brush off. It takes until almost the middle of the movie to fully understand what is going on. The underlying story of a young girl finding herself works out eventually. But that too takes forever. All of the actors and actresses do a wonderful job in their parts. Horrible writing kills their acting jobs though. A touching story once you forget about the worthlessness of it all.

Snapshots is a New World meets Old World, young meets old, past meets present love story with a fine use of coincidence, a great flavor of Amsterdam, and some terrific moments by Reynolds and Chaplin.

The flashback scenes of younger love (apparently done by a second crew) are nearly unwatchable...editors might have saved them as quick, patchy dream-like sequences, but let them run in all of their silliness. Without a fast-forward button, they ruin the film. USA scenes are almost as bad with a corny TV flair and evidently no budget for cinema-like setups--the only good thing to say is that they show how much better an actress Chaplin is than the production around her.

Watch it for the Amsterdam parts, which are lovely, well-acted, and even funny.

What a nice, quiet little movie. Rented it last night, on the quest for something non-blockbuster-ish. The atmosphere and subtly-felt performances were so nicely executed that it made up for the unlikeliness of the key plot points. Wonderful shots of Amsterdam, too.

Award-winning Dutch filmmaker Rudolf van den Berg almost manages to pull off this unlikely romantic drama, if not against all odds, then at least against quite a few. First of all, Burt Reynolds plays an ageing hippie. Reynolds was probably further from the hippie culture than most Americans his age in the '60s and '70s. Second of all, Julie Christie plays a Moroccan woman. That's borderline preposterous. And on top of that, young Carmen Chaplin (Charlie's granddaughter), who was in her mid-20s here, becomes some sort of love interest for old Burt. Admittedly, he was still handsome and charming. So it's somewhat surprising that it's actually the scenes between these two characters, Larry and Aïsha, which carry the film and give the unlikely plot the necessary weight and warmth. Van den Berg's work is simultaneously sensitive and corny, clever and flawed. I cannot decide whether the film could have been much better, or if it actually turned out as well as it possibly could. But as usual, Reynolds gets ample opportunity to demonstrate his wonderful comedic timing and line delivery.