Just the Way You Are

OK, I have posted a review for this film in the past, but I just love this film sooooooooooo much. Kristy MacNichol is so terrific and so appealing in this film and the rest of the cast is well perfectly casted. This film really tugs at your heart strings. Like the scene where she is able to ski for the first time, talk about uplifting. And when her character experiences pain, you feel it to because one can't but help to get involved into her journey of self discovery. This is also very well directed with lots of pretty scenery and the music score is just perfect for this film. Every time I see this movie it just gets better every time. Go out and rent this film right away. It is a very underrated classic.

Some might dismiss this as Hollywood fluff, but I thought it was a very well done examination of meaningful issues, issues that are very important to me personally.

A crippled musican with a leg brace takes a trip to France with her leg in a cast to see what people will treat her like when they don't know she is handicapped. A very appealing film and Kristy MacNichol has never been so likeable. An underrated classic. One of my favorite films of all time. Enjoy 9 out of 10.

Kristy McNichol gives a good if uneven performance as a crippled flautist--working her way through a series of romantic losers here at home--who travels to a French ski-resort and gets a bright idea: she replaces her cumbersome leg-brace with a cast and finds guys wanting her sexually for the first time. Bumpy romantic comedy begins well, but is really two different pictures, with Kristy's musician going from shyly seductive girl to mercurial, exasperating kid. There are some savvy moments, but mostly in the quietly charming first hour. Once in France, where McNichol hooks up with incredibly patient photographer Michael Ontkean, the filmmakers get too silly, replacing the satiric wit with cheap, blurry sentiment and a pointless discotheque sequence that goes on...and on. **1/2 from ****

In New York City, Susan Berlanger (Kristy McNichol) is a concert flutist with a lame leg. Gay investment banker and friend Frank Bantam (Tim Daly) had proposed a marriage of convenience and moving them to Texas. Her best friend Lisa Elliott is a dancer. Jack is her telephone answering service and wants a date despite never met her. Sam Carpenter asks for a date with Lisa but falls for Susan instead. Somehow, her bum leg always get in the way. While on an European tour, she convinces a doctor to put a leg cast on her and goes to a ski resort pretending to have a leg injury. Photographer Peter Nichols (Michael Ontkean) is taken with her convinced that she's hiding a secret.

This movie is split in two. For the first part, the movie introduces three romantic possibilities for Susan. That's plenty enough to last a whole rom-com movie. She has a best friend. The whole movie is set up but it's really only a set up to introduce the premise. The premise could have been introduced with fewer characters and a shorter time. In fact, Ontkean is introduced after over forty minutes and he's the romantic partner. That's halfway into the movie. It's too late and his meet cute is inferior to both Jack and Sam. There is a cheesy music montage and that's fun. I do like the second half. I just wish that it gets there quicker.