De l'amour à la folie

Shirtless in Seattle, handsome blue-eyed Chris O'Donnell (as Matt Leland) has his telescope trained on jiggling blonde Drew Barrymore (as Casey Roberts). Later, the sexy high school seniors go to a concert by themselves, which is strange, and do some head-banging. They skip school and have fun driving her yellow Volkswagen around town. These two are attractive, affluent and in love. However, something seems wrong. To be with Mr. O'Donnell during a test, Ms. Barrymore pulls the school fire alarm. "What are you, nuts?" asks O'Donnell. "Yeah," she replies. This turns out to be true...

Director Antonia Bird gets all her spark plugs in line for a fine sequence involving traveling salesman Liev Schreiber...

Barrymore seems emotionally disturbed, with a confidential diagnosis. After a suicide attempt, she is committed. O'Donnell helps her bust out of the mental hospital and they go on a joyride to Mexico. Barrymore's road "games" are so obviously over the top, it's a stretch to believe O'Donnell doesn't catch on faster. Possibly, it would have worked better if writer Paula Milne gave him some substance abuse; the character seems too level-headed. Barrymore and O'Donnell look great together, but are unconvincing as an amateur "Bonnie and Clyde". Besides, it looks like car theft is legal in the southwest.

***** Mad Love (5/26/95) Antonia Bird ~ Chris O'Donnell, Drew Barrymore, Kevin Dunn, Liev Schreiber

The bipolar stuff is dead on and Barrymore sells it. O'Donnell as the significant other dealing with it is also good but the movie opens slow and takes a while to hook you and lame half-assed attempts at emotional dialogue derail it toward the end, which is too bad because a good movie on bipolar deserves to be made but this is not quite it. Joan Allen is good as always but the man playing her husband has one note. Other cast members do what they can with small parts but in the end this is a two person story. And unfortunately it is about a man in over his head written by a writer in over hers.

This wasn't necessarily a bad movie, but it wasn't that good either. It desperately tried to cash in on the teen audience, with a "hip" cast and soundtrack, but as a teenager I couldn't really relate. Chris O'Donnell's performance was pretty bland, but Drew spiced it up a bit. It started to get better towards the end when we finally got to see the extent of Drew's depression, but the first 3/4 of the movie was such a paint by numbers approach to a romance that I'm not sure that it was worth the wait. Leaves little to criticize, but even less to praise.

Like many other reviewers, I feel this is a poor movie (screenplay), but Drew really captures the feeling of mental illness. I've known some people who are manic depressive (and a few schizophrenics) and I have to say that Drew must have some personal knowledge of severe depression to be able to pull off a performance like this. She really elevates the movie from a 2-bit teen romance and makes it worth watching. I'm not generally a fan (*hated* Donnie Darko) and I usually find her childish "damaged goods" image rather irritating even though it may be her real personality, but in this one she just embodies the part. 6/10.

The high-school student Matt Leland (Chris O'Donnell) lives with his twin brother and sister and his father in a house by the lake. When the teenager Casey Roberts (Drew Barrymore) moves to the house on the other side of the lake, Matt snoops into her room with his telescope. They meet each other and soon they fall in love with each other. One day, Matt is taking a test at school and Casey activates the fire alarm to stop the test. She is suspended and her father decides to check her into a psychiatric institution. However Matt breaks her out of the hospital. They travel in Matt's car and have lots of fun until the day Matt discovers that Casey has bipolar disorder with periods of depression and periods of elevated mood. When she tries to commit suicide, Matt realizes that she needs specialized help.

"Mad Love" is a road movie with a tale of madness and sort of teen version of "The Girl from Trieste". Matt Leland is a good student and son that changes his behavior when he falls in love with the maniac depressive Casey that has arrived from Chicago. When she is interned in an institution, he believes that her family is unfair with the girl. But when he realizes that her mental illness is serious and dangerous, he contacts her family and they find the solution for her treatment. My vote is seven.

Title (Brazil): "Amor Louco" ("Mad Love")