Lune de miel aux orties

Having just purchased the DVD of this movie, and not having seen it for more than ten years, I feared perhaps it would too antiquated and dated to still be worthwhile owning. This was certainly not the case.

Lovers And Other Strangers is totally charming and lovable movie that despite the emphasis on the year it was made(there are many references to 1970) is still very relevant and moving. I admit to being close to tears at one scene, between a father and son, towards the end. I was also laughing out loud at many other scenes such as the hysterical Italian parents trying to scare their son into remaining in his unhappy marriage(a classic scene with hilarious dialogue you won't ever forget) and the furtive passionate embraces with the bride's father and his mistress in every available bathroom.

The themes that are relevant to today is the search for love in an increasingly uncertain age. The film opens with an outpouring from the groom to be, about all his fears of the future of the world and his doubts about marriage. Today all those fears are still there plus many many more. There is also power struggles between the genders, casual sex, extra-marital affairs and the dilemma of staying in an unhappy relationship. Some of these were very new themes explored in movies at the time it was made.

Having said that there are elements of the film that are charmingly dated which obviously include the music, the clothes and some of the social attitudes(it was at a time when divorce was still a disgraceful scandal for many families, particularly Catholic families). These dated elements though give it more of a nostalgic feel rather deter any enjoyment.

Michael Brandon and Bonnie Bedilia are lovable as the newly weds and Bea Arthur and Richard Castellano are the hilarious parents of the groom. The whole of the ensemble cast is great and watch for Dianne Keaton's film debut as the estranged daughter-in-law.

Mike (Michael Brandon) and Susan (Bonnie Bedelia) are getting married. The movie deals with them and their various families preparing the wedding. Bedelia's parents are played by Gig Young and Cloris Leachman--and Young is sleeping with a cousin played by Anne Jackson. Mike's parents are played by Beatrice Arthur and Richard Castellano who hate each other. Also Mike's brother Richie is divorcing his wife played by Diane Keaton (in her film debut). There's also Jerry and Brenda who just date for the wedding--and fall in love and Anne Meara and Harry Guardino as a couple constantly bickering over who's the boss. Meara's husband Jerry Stiller also appears unbilled and her daughter Amy (who is billed).

As you can see there's a LOT going on in this film--you're never bored. It is very dated--the talks about sex, marriage, relationships and male and female roles are VERY 1960s...but they are quite interesting. The script is sharp and the characters believable and there are funny lines flying nonstop throughout the movie. It's also amusing to see how Mike and Susan are living together before they get married--but can't tell any of their parents as it would kill them! Some of the sexual stereotypes get to be a bit much (Guardino especially is just appalling) but that's a sign of the times. A song in this movie ("For All We Know") won the Academy Award for Best Song at the Oscars but it's sung by a man here not the Carpenters (who had a BIG hit with it).

This was originally rated R for the frank (for the time) sex talk, a flash of nudity and some mild swearing. It's PG now but I wouldn't let kids watch it--it's not too dirty they just wouldn't understand it.

Bssically a fun movie with an outstanding cast. Worth seeing.

This is one of the funniest wedding pictures I have ever seen. The film pretty much accurately portrays a lot of the things that go on around the time of a wedding. Things like the mother of either the bride or groom about to suffer a nervous breakdown, one couple on the verge of a divorce while the brother (or sister) is getting married or one of the groomsmen trying to make it with one of the bridesmaids. The writer must have been to a lot of weddings to really come up with this great slice of life comedy.

As for the cast, Bonnie Bedelia and Michael Brandon are perfectly cast as Susan and Mike, who seem to be the only ones that are happy while everyone else isn't. Cloris Leachman (a few months before taking the role of Mary Richard's annoying and overbearing neighbor Phyllis) is also great as Susan's mother, who is oblivious to her husband's philandering. Also, in a very quiet performance, Dianne Keaton makes a solid debut as Mike's soon to be ex-sister-in-law, who show's up even though she know's she has to face her in-law's as well as her estranged husband. However, Bea Arthur (a couple of years before her career defining role as overbearing liberal Maude) steals the show as Mike's overbearing, devoutly Catholic mother. This film is definitely a sleeper.

This film is a wonderful comedy, with glowing portrayals, a great comic atmosphere, and some deliciously insightful moments of human interaction. I wish that I owned it on video. Watch for Bea Arthur and Richard Castellano, they are simply marvellous. Highly recommended.

Quite a few reviewers accuse this film of being dated. But when I first saw it in 1970, it already defied that idea because it saw through the zeitgeist. Rather than getting mired in passing fads and causes, the writers fondly made light of the clash of generations. Writers Joe Bologna and Renée Taylor exaggerate the tensions and conversations in the two families of the engaged couple, as well as the period fashions and furnishings, just enough to make the film entertaining, but also witty and touching.

The movie spares nobody. Hidebound Italian Catholics, bourgeois suburbanites, a macho ex-marine married to a feminist, an usher seducing a bridesmaid, counterculture cohabitation-- the superb cast delivers it all. Superficially, they all represent stereotypes, but-- and here's the trick-- they also defy simplistic categories they are unique individuals, and you cannot predict what any of them will say or do next. No Archie Bunkers or Meatheads here.

It's not Balzac, but it is a classic human comedy realized as popular art, two families afloat in the late '60s, when parents thought they were losing their offspring, because their kids were questioning traditions. But those kids were questioning ingrained habits, not traditional virtues, the deep values and ethics that form our larger society. "No gap here," is the refrain of Gig Young, a buffoonish patriarch determined to keep everybody happy-- but ultimately he's right. They all have more in common than they know, and by the time the young couple is married, we don't have to be told that their marriage will be every bit as complicated as their parents' are. The movie already told us.

If the movie has a core, it's Richard Castellano's speech to his elder son who is about to divorce his wife, an unthinkable first in the family. Castellano (in the same role he played in the original Broadway play) got an Oscar nomination, and he's wonderful throughout, but especially delivering the speech that becomes the spoken soul of the movie. It includes: "We're all strangers. But after a while you get used to it. You become deeper strangers. That's a sort of love."