Cara mamma, mi sposo

Personally, I would watch Maureen O'hara recite the local phone directory-even at age 71. John Candy shows his big, soft side in one of my favorite efforts of his. While the plot is fairly predictable from the outset, the treat to me is watching the interaction between O'hara and Candy. She is snide enough to make me want to dislike her intensely. But she's Maureen O'hara-I couldn't hate her if I wanted to. An entertaining movie that garnishes a 7 from the swingman.

John Candy was one of the most gifted actors in Hollywood having seen his performances in Splash, Uncle Buck, Spaceballs and Cool Runnings he had a great talent for both comedy and drama. Only the Lonely is a funny little gem that also features the great acting of Maureen O'Hara, Jim Belushi & Ally Sheedy.

The story is simple a lonely Chicago cop in his late 30's finds romance with the daughter of a funeral parlour owner he must also deal with his mother who disapproves of the relationship. Maureen O'Hara portrayed the role of Rose Muldoon to perfection, she comes across as a tight fisted iron willed Irish woman who tells it like it is without any regard of who gets hurt.

Danny Muldoon (Candy) is a 38 year old police officer who still lives with with his mother in Chicago he is always worried about her to the point of having nightmares in which something bad happens. still single and longing to find love soon enough his search ends up in the one place nobody would expect. One evening at a bar Danny crosses paths with Theresa Luna (Sheedy) the shy daughter of funeral parlour owner Johnny Luna (Greco). The next day he heads to the parlour where Theresa does make up for the stiffs. He asks her out, she says yes. The funniest scene is when they are on the date and he tells an amusing story about his brother Patrick's (Dunn) bachelor party.

Another plot of the film sees Nick Acropolis (Quinn) Danny's neighbour trying to win the affections of his mother he's been asking her out for years she keeps turning him down. However by the end of the film after accepting her son's choice to be with the love of his life she warms up to Nick's charms.

Funny & filled with many dramatic moments Only The Lonely is a good gem of a movie for anyone out there. Rest In Peace John you are missed.

'Only the Lonely' is an okay film, that rides on the late/great John Candy's undeniable talent. The talented actor, pitches in a likable performance, that dominates the film.

'Only the Lonely' Synopsis: A Chicago cop must balance loyalty to his overbearing mother and a relationship with a shy funeral home worker.

Besides Candy's likable performance, 'Only the Lonely' also manages to get in some cute/funny moments. The characters are nicely written & the Screenplay overall, has some niceness to it. But, the slow-pace as well as the length, needed some serious persuasion. The pace is slow & the film is lengthy by at least 15-minutes. Chris Columbus's Direction is fair. Cinematography is standard. Editing isn't crisp.

Performance-Wise: Candy is the life of 'Only the Lonely'. Maureen O'Hara is theatrical. Ally Sheedy is cute. Anthony Quinn & James Belushi appear in brief roles.

On the whole, 'Only the Lonely' is a yet another example of how great an actor John Candy was.

More of a romantic comedy than just straight comedy this movie from the late John Candy was really good. He plays a policeman with a bit of a domineering mother who has not had much success in finding that special someone. He finally does, but not surprisingly his mother disapproves of her. Throughout the film we are shown how this relationship between Candy's and Sheedy's character progresses and how hard the mother tries to get in the way and stop her son from marrying an Italian girl instead of a nice Irish girl. We also get to see how much Candy's character worries about his mother when he is not with her, imagining all sorts of unfortunate events leading to her demise. We get to see a rather creative way of getting a deceased person's corpse out of an apartment building too. The funniest scene and quite frankly a rather awkward scene as well has to be the dinner scene where the son finally introduces mother to prospective new wife to be. All in all this movie is really nice and sweet, the comedy is pretty tame for the most part with nothing to crude and the relationship between the couple seems more real than most romantic comedies these days.

Roles like this helped make big John Candy somewhat of a beloved figure in his time. He was good at playing big, lovable oafs that usually messed up but had a good heart.

Many times, as in here, he might appear jovial on the outside but inside he was a very lonely guy, hence the title. I'll bet a number of viewers could identify with him. In this film he plays "Danny Muldoon."

Ally Sheedy's character, "Theresa Luna," is sweet in the beginning but then becomes unfairly-demanding and annoying by the end. Maureen O'Hara did a fine job playing "Danny's" domineering mother, "Rose." She came out of retirement to do this film and did herself proud. Anthony Quinn's role was stupid.

This movie is billed as a comedy but I didn't find a lot of laughs in it. It's really more of a sentimental drama, and it works on that level. I always enjoy seeing comedians do drama, because they are so good at doing it. I'm sorry Candy didn't make a few more dramatic roles.