Segredos do Coração

I didn't remember this film being so well made when I first viewed it back in 1994. I think it's aged well 30 years later. Some of that is due to a wonderful cast of actors, (some no longer with us); Many welcomed faces: Garry Shandling, Brenda Vaccaro, Paul Mazursky, Pierce Brosnan, Harold Ramis.

Also the cinematography is much better than I remembered; Katharine Hepburn's brief but key performance is excellent. Young Annette Bening's beauty and grace is matched with her engaging performance.

Warren Beatty is good, but I think he's too old for this role, sad to say. The Warren Beatty of Heaven Can Wait would have been more age appropriate for this character. He doesn't ruin the film--he just doesn't enhance it.

Do I believe this love story? Well yes, 30 years later: it's Bening and Beatty.

If anyone thinks that we've seen the last remake of Love Affair, think again. The Indian cinema has done a version of it a few years after this film came out. This story has a timeless appeal that Warren Beatty certainly recognized.

Anyone who has seen the original Love Affair and the remake An Affair To Remember will know the plot of this film exactly. Warren Beatty and Annette Bening fill the shoes of previous lovers Charles Boyer and Irene Dunne and Cary Grant and Deborah Kerr. With very few deviations except those to update the story this film has the same plot.

One of those deviations has our star crossed lovers Warren Beatty and Annette Bening meeting on a transoceanic flight to Sydney, Australia which is certainly a lot of time to get acquainted. They get even better acquainted when they are forced to land on a Pacific island where Beatty's grandmother Katharine Hepburn has a nice tropical place. The kind of setting where romance has to bloom.

This was Katharine Hepburn's last big screen appearance, she did one more television film and then her Parkinson's Disease and other ailments that beset people of the age she lived to forced her retirement. I'll bet she never thought she would in 1939 wind up in a remake of a film doing a part Maria Ouspenskaya created. She does it grand style though and only Kate can make an old Anglo-Saxon expletive sound elegant.

That Warren Beatty got nominated for a Razzie award for remaking Love Affair is a disgrace. This is old fashioned romantic entertainment, the kind that old Hollywood used to do. I think Beatty and everyone connected with this Love Affair should be proud.

I notice that Leo McCarey who wrote and directed Love Affair and An Affair To Remember is prominently listed on the screen credits. He'd be proud of this remake himself, I'm sure.

It was very difficult to decide how to rate this movie. I'd not seen the Cary Grant / Deborah Kerr version (except for the little snippets that appear in "Sleepless in Seattle"), so my opinion was not colored by the inevitable comparisons... It's just that the first half of the movie struck me as being incredibly *bad* : it was poorly written in particular. Once Katherine Hepburn appeared on the scene, the film began to improve quite noticeably, and the last half was considerably better, with superb performances, especially from the two principals. I've never been a big Warren Beatty fan, but Annette Bening is WONDERFUL! (I think I've fallen in love!!!) -- To sum up, the first half of the movie rates a 3 in my book, the second half an 8 -- hence my overall grade of 5.

Why did Beatty and Bening decide to do a remake of one of the most romantic films of all time? They should have left it alone. There is little chemistry between them (despite the fact they are married in real life). No dramatic tension, no nothing. Katherine Hepburn, in a brief appearance, is the only bright spark in the whole thing.

The 1932 "Love Affair" is one of the most beautiful, charming and brokenhearted love stories of the cinema industry. Irene Dunne and Charles Boyer have the perfect chemistry and it is impossible not fall in love for her.

The 1957 "An Affair to Remember" is a remake frame by frame of the original movie and also more famous. Cary Grant and Deborah Kerr also have perfect chemistry and had been my favorite romance after "Casablanca" until the day I saw the 1932 "Love Affair".

I was curious to see the 1994 version of "Love Affair" and I found it a weak remake maybe to satisfy the ego of Warren Beatty. The introduction is awful with annoying music score and edition. Mike Gambril is a detestable character and I do not see any reason for Terry falling in love with him. It is only good to see Ms. Katharine Hepburn in her last feature. My vote is five.

Title (Brazil): "Segredos do Coração" ("Secrets of the Heart")