Um Pequeno Romance

One of the finest movies I have ever seen. Let no one ever again say that intelligent movies can't be deeply moving, spiritual, and just plain fun.

I was utterly stupefied at the seamless way this movie exposes the spiritual landscape. I'm really at a loss to explain this movie in the normal way one speaks of theatrical productions; in terms of components, like writing, direction, acting, etc. This movie was marvelously "of a piece", which is very, very relaxing and refreshing. Analyzing it would feel like dissecting a living thing, which I won't do.

Just one of the gems: This movie makes perfectly plain the essential role of familial love for the full and timely flowering of romantic love. At a time when people are accused of ascribing to movies an inordinate responsibility for social conditions, this movie reminds you why it might be reasonable to do so. It can be fairly well depended upon to stand as a model for father-daughter love, true husbandry under difficult circumstances (a spiritually impoverished mother), and exploring your first love.

And there are lots and lots and lots of other gems in this movie. There's sweet chaos, Sir Laurence Olivier, an excellent balance of English and subtitled native speech, a truly fine and unaffected portrayal of European life, and on and on and on. SEE THIS MOVIE!

This movie seems to be about the problems of growing up smarter than everyone else, but it's a very complicated little movie. Everyone in this movie wants to be like the people in the movies, even though they fall far short. There is a brief cameo by Broderick Crawford at a wrap party. Crawford is not interested in art. He wants booze and broads. The director, who is romancing Diane Lane's mother, is a schlock director, but is flattered by people's belief he is an artist. Olivier plays an old man who pretends to be many things, but turns out to be a petty crook. As for the two young lovers who want to seal their love by kissing under the Bridge of Sighs in Venice as the church bells sound, they want to be Bogey and Bacall.

Well, didn't we all? Don't we all?

We were the first family in our neighborhood to have a VCR. The first movie I can remember watching was A Little Romance!! Can you imagine being a 5 year old girl and seeing Europe for the first time through the eyes of these two beautiful teen agers. Seeing true LOVE for the first time in such a genuine, honest story! I was overwhelmed by the beauty of it all. I LOVE this movie! I have watched it many times in my life, at various ages. I have shared it with friends and family and watched with some odd sort of pride as they too fell in love with the story and its characters. Such a whirlwind story. Never a dull moment. And can I just say that the soundtrack is incredible!!!

I still own our original VHS tape. It came encased in plastic inside a large cardboard, front-opening box. It has traveled with me, moved with me countless times, been watched repeatedly, and probably even cried on. But, like the true love it represents, it has withstood the test of time. However, last Spring, my own sweet, wonderful boyfriend did buy me the DVD, "for when your copy goes to that big VCR in the sky". (what a keeper he is)

I cannot express the depth of emotions this movie triggers in me. And I can't explain how I managed to cling to the belief that love, can indeed be as simple and beautiful as the characters portray. But I can say that it has been my quest "to kiss under the bridge of sighs, at sunset, while the bells toll". It has become a dream to be fulfilled. Summer of 2005, my boyfriend and I will be in Europe. And we WILL visit Venice. And we WILL take that gondola ride. And as the incomparable Sir Laurence Olivier says in the movie " What are legends anyways, but stories about ordinary people doing extraordinary things.....Something that two people who are in love create together, against impossible odds, CAN hold them together...forever!"

We believe the legend is real!!!!

The wonder of Laurence Olivier was his flexibility. From Shakespeare to the light & fluffy he was not too proud and that he enjoyed his profession so is shown in all his last works. This film is one of the latter and it may delight you with its humour and insight. A story set in Paris(sigh) of two adolescents from very different backgrounds and their budding romance in this the city of love. Which raises a good question mr director, why go to Venice when you could have done it all here the most romantic place in the world. But I digress. Lauren(Diane Lane) & Daniel(Thelonius Bernard) are the leads. Two youngsters with very high IQ's, they both read Heidegger & Nitsche for kicks, and who are surrounded by incompetent adults led by Daniel's dad, a parisien taxi driver with questionable ethics and Laurens mum Kay( Sally Kellerman playing a snobbish ex-patriot socialite) who balks at the thought of returning to the states-"goddam Houston".There is also a fine supporting cast of David Dukes playing George, a very avant-garde film director(so he says) and to Kay a potential husband number three, and Arthur Hill playing the kindly stepfather Richard. Broderick Crawford also makes a cameo appearance as himself, sadly one of his last. Olivier makes his entrance as the comical old gentleman with a mysterious past who used to live at the Browning's Villa in Venice and who befriends the two youngsters regaling them with a romantic tale of eternal love which can only be sealed with a kiss in a gondola under the bridge of sighs in Venice.Enough said.

Director Hill directs against type here but imbues his story with some wonderful vignettes. When Daniel's friend Londet sneaks them in to watch a blue movie Laurens reaction is a typically adolescent, morbid curiousity followed by revulsion and then a pert clinical summary.As if to say this aint that kind of a movie folks. Interestingly the two teenage leads found the eventual physical contact an embarrasing experience for all and had to be firmly encouraged by the director.There is a hint of their discomfort on screen but only for a moment. Love conquers all(sigh). Oliviers humourous performance transfixes when he almost gags on his croissant when seeing his criminal identikit photo in the newspaper. Hill also finds time to place excerpts from previous movies into his latest film,but aptly so. Albeit all in a foreign language. I also loved the photography and the landscape, I dont remember Italy being this lovely. The performances by all are very affecting although Lane did go on to bigger though not always better things. Bernard with his gallic good looks and despite passable reviews was never heard from again. Olivier sadly has passed on and will be missed by all for a long time to come.The ending was predictable but touching all the same.It never won any awards but twenty years later it remains one of my firm favourites for love story of the decade.

I've never been able to get this out of my head since its first release; it is one of the best films I've ever seen. I just looked at the DVD and was amazed at how many details I still remember from that first viewing 26 years ago. Gunfire-addled IMDb voters are dead wrong; this should be a 9+, but I guess it gets docked two points for having no explosions and only one shooting (with a blank pistol, which probably doesn't count).

The only "modern romances" in the same league are Richard Linklater's "Sunrise/Sunset" films, which I urge all fans of "A Little Romance" to see.

As fine as Diane Lane has been in recent films, I don't believe she's ever been as good as she is here, 13 years old and simultaneously fresh as new snow and polished as silver plate. She absolutely belonged on that TIME magazine cover. It's a miraculous performance which may owe more to director Hill than to Lane herself, but who cares? Just enjoy it...her interview feature on the DVD is excellent, by the way.

With the exception of "Marathon Man" and a couple of British TV plays, you can't find better late-period Olivier. He's simply delightful. If you are really perverse (like me), watch this and then compare with "The Boys from Brazil," a dreadful Olivier movie from the previous year, which should have qualified Sir Larry as the all-time champion "great actor working like hell while thigh-deep in pure crap." Here it's the exact opposite: the consummate old pro, totally relaxed, tossing off another memorable performance because he's in a terrific movie that he doesn't have to try and save. This is how I choose to remember the older Olivier. Another old pro, Broderick Crawford, damn near steals the movie in his too-brief cameos. He has a wonderful moment with Thelonious Bernard that will charm anyone who's dealt with an aging person's fading memory.

Arthur Hill, yet another reliable old guy, puts a nice turn on the #2 step-dad character. Who ever looked better in a business suit? The only truly unbelievable thing in the movie is that such a smart and understanding man would actually marry Sally Kellerman's vapid, starstruck mother character. Heavens, what a bitch. She doesn't deserve Arthur, and the scene in which he ejects equally vapid Potential Next Husband David Dukes from their lives is a classic of real-world, real man macho.

It's a real shame that Thelonious Bernard didn't have a film career, but if you can only star in one movie, this is a pretty damn good one for it. The iconic freeze-frame final shot of him leaping above traffic to wave goodbye is something one never forgets. It's like the alternate universe version of the last shot in "The 400 Blows."

One more thing: thank heavens there was no sequel.