Modern Romance

MODERN ROMANCE is one of the great unsung film comedies. It's not for everyone, in that the comedy is possibly too close-to-the-bone for people who like their comedy nice and painless. But in the post-Seinfeld era, when Curb Your Enthusiasm is a cult favorite, it is looking more and more like Modern Romance was WAY ahead of its time.

Real Life, Lost In America, and Defending Your Life are all great, but for some reason this film stands out to me as Mr. Brooks' greatest cinematic effort. (Stanley Kubrick was a fan, too-- he was trying to make his own film about jealousy, which would end up being EYES WIDE SHUT two decades later.)

The real shame is that this film is the only Brooks effort never released on DVD. We can only hope that Criterion might rescue it from oblivion with a nice special edition (with commentary by Brooks!)

This film is not for everyone. If you do not already like Albert Brooks, or are only lukewarm on him, by all means stay away from it. I happen to love Brooks and, hence, this film. But I can understand people getting fed up with it because it's not structured or scripted like a normal movie. The biggest complaint I've heard about it is that all the other characters in it besides Brooks, especially the girlfriend, are mere props for him. That's absolutely true. It's as if Brooks would have preferred to do a long monologue (or a stand-up routine) but then decided at the last minute that he did need people to be present every now and again to bounce things off of. Just so you know what to expect: this is not an "interaction" movie - this is undiluted Albert Brooks coming straight at you for nearly two hours, with all his smarminess, vanity and doggedness firmly in place.

What I love about Brooks, at least in his early movies (i.e. everything before Defending Your Life) is that he is not afraid to totally take upon himself the traits which he means to ridicule. He's often been compared to Woody Allen but I think the differences are important. In all his films, Woody Allen takes himself to task, relentlessly analyzes and criticizes himself, shows us his weaknesses and flaws, etc. - but then undercuts it all by playing for our affection with his cutesy physicality and his meant-to-be-adorable one-liners. Brooks doesn't *want* you to love him, he delights in heaping one annoying trait after another upon himself and portraying it to its full, uncensored extent. He doesn't do one-liners or gags - instead, he embodies the personality of someone who would be the butt of such gags or one-liners, and the embodiment is what is meant to be funny.

For example, in this movie, there is an amazing 15 minute sequence near the beginning where Brooks, having just dumped his girlfriend, putters around his apartment pep talking himself into feeling good and succeeding only in becoming more and more miserable. The delusion and self-absorption on display is monumental, and it's given a kind of grandeur by the amount of time focused upon it - you could almost label the scene "The Narcissist's Aria." It's annoying as hell, and I couldn't blame anyone for being totally turned off by it. And yet, that annoyingness is exactly the point, and what makes the scene so hysterical. Brooks' performance here is nothing short of brilliant - the kind which would surely take home an Academy Award for Best Actor in a Comedy if such a category existed at the Oscars.

Think of Albert Brooks here as George Costanza on "Seinfeld" - only with his monomania squared simply from having no close friends to interact with and bring him down to size. If that seems like torture to you, keep right on moving when you see this one in the video store aisle. However, if you always secretly wondered what George would be like if he got his very own show - well, here's the closest approximation of a pilot episode that you're ever likely to find.

Pains me to admit it but I could relate to Albert Brooks' character in parts of this. The swinging back and forth between optimism and despair right after a breakup hit kind of hard. Also: a part late in the film where thin and his sort-of girlfriend sort of argue, and Brooks' character is unable to end it in a way that will leave things fully at peace... that was relatable too.

All that said, the most entertaining parts were probably the sequences where Brooks worked as an editor on what looked like a gloriously stupid sci-fi film starring George Kennedy.

Overall: it's not perfect, and I think it does owe maybe a bit too much to the kind of movies Woody Allen was making around this time. But I did like a good deal of the humour, and a romantic-comedy that investigates the final stages of a relationship is refreshing, considering most standard romantic-comedies focus on the early days.

Film editor Robert Cole (Albert Brooks) having broken up with his girlfriend Mary Harvard (Kathryn Harrold) yet again decides to reinvent himself by focusing on the B-rate space opera he's editing for American International Pictures, taking up jogging, and throwing himself in the dating scene. However, Robert begins feeling regret at his decision and tries to get back together with Mary only for his jealousy and paranoia to get in the way.

The second feature from Writer/Director Albert Brooks, Modern Romance while technically a "romantic comedy", fits that definition by way of the neurotic approach coined by Woody Allen's films such as Manhattan and Annie Hall. Featuring a couple who are in a repeated cycle of ending and reconciling their relationship, Brooks crafts a wickedly funny take on two people who are wrong for each other yet keep coming back together.

The movie speaks to a lot of those petty insecurities we've either experienced ourselves and seen in others as well as the overly forgiving "well maybe this time it'll be different" mindset that is the breeding ground of many bad decisions. From ill defined grievances to overcompensating attempts at making up that only serve to be undermined by poorly thought through interrogatives, Brooks creates a couple who have chemistry, but the audience REALLY doesn't want them to.

The movie also features some solid comedy and character outside of its core examination of a relationship that doesn't work, with a subplot about Robert dealing with the inane requests of the director whose film he's editing, ably played by James L. Brooks before his breakout with Terms of Endearment. The sheer ridiculousness Robert puts up with from the director's request such as "thumpier stomps" in a corridor chase are quite funny especially with how the get the effects. There's also some solid work with Brooks' brother Bob Einstein playing a pushy sports equipment salesman.

Modern Romance is an uncomfortable sit in many places, but it's a funny and insightful uncomfortable sit. With fleshed out characters and an unapologetic portrayal of a couple that just shouldn't be together, it's a guarantee for awkward and uncomfortable laughs.

I do like Albert Brooks. As an actor. As a writer and director, his movies fall short of funny, happy to be amusing. Modern Romance is par for the course.

Only in the exchange with Medowlark Lemon does the movie come close to explaining Brooks' neurotic obsession with his girlfriend: she's out of his league. We don't know enough to understand why she's with him; the movie is more interested in his antics. Not only is Brooks' character narcissistic, his movie is too.

The foley scene, the shopping excursion, the Hollywood party are all deftly handled and expertly underplayed. I truly believe that Brooks can find the humor in anything. But he's satisfied with too little in his movies, and his disregard for structure (in his early films) is both curious and frustrating. It's as if he thinks he can get away with less if he doesn't seem to be trying as hard.

Essentially, Modern Romance is a 60-minute monologue with some situational humor mixed in. Is he in love with her, or with himself? That may be the point, but that makes me neither marvel nor laugh.