Modern Romance

Some movies get better the more often I see them, because I have more time to enjoy the subtle jokes in the dialogues. Albert Brooks is famous for his dialogues and his whining. I love it, but some might find it tedious and self centered. It is both those things, but the boring self centered behaviour is all done tongue in cheek, like no one else can do it, the funny way Albert Brooks does. He is often referred to as the Californian version of Woody Allen. If you like Allen you hopefully appreciate the same kind of insecure self hatred jokes of Albert Brooks.

What's the story about? Albert Brooks plays a guy who is terribly in love with a woman. But he is terribly jealous as well. He just doesnt trust her. He is afraid of losing her to any hansom guy walking past down the street. Extremely possesive. So he decides to break up with her. But the moment he has broken up, he starts longing for her again. He cant live with her, but he cant live without her either. The jokes about all the little misunderstandings in relationships are to die for.

Nothing happens in this movie. Really slowburning story, but funny as can be, if you dig this kind of tongue in cheek humor ofcourse. This is certainly not a fast straight comedy. The complete opposite. The guy just sits around worrying about his girlfriend having an affair. He sits around at a boring editing job. This endlesly sitting around stuff and the endless thoughts of jealousy are performed brilliantly. Maybe this whining and obsessively worrying will only be really aprreciated by those few who already understand the subtleties of Albert Brooks jokes. But please just give it a shot anyway. If you dont like the first 15 minutes, nothing much will change after that. No problem, you just dont dig this kind of humor. But if you dont try, you might miss out on one of the best slowburning comedies of the entire eighties! I adore the talent of this director and actor Brooks, who can make an entire comedy about nothing else but worrying about his girflriend. Worrying if she is secretly having an affair with complete strangers. An hour and a half full of whining and obsessive worrying. Brilliant, truly brilliant script!

Albert Brooks starred and also co-wrote the script with Monica McGowan Johnson. He plays Robert, a Hollywood film editor, who is in a roller-coaster of a relationship with Mary, a bank executive. The film pretty much drops in on one go-round of what is clearly there standard cycle of breaking up and falling madly in love again.

It's quite a good film. Brooks is on the likable side of neurotic, and Kathryn Harrold as Mary is quite charming. James L. Brooks plays the director of the film that Robert is editing (He later cast Albert Brooks in Broadcast News.), and Bruno Kirby plays Robert's co-worker, Jay.

The film is full of memorable scenes, including a bit of an extended sequence with Robert at home after he takes Quaalude's that is pure gold and quite a bit more underplayed than the Quaalude scene in Scorcese's The Wolf of Wall Street.

It was interesting to watch this film in the context of the way films and television tackle relationships today - it feels a bit of a precursor to modern relationship comedies. The humor can be subtle and sometimes requires patience but it can really pay off. It's a well-paced film, too. I heard somewhere that - of all people - Stanley Kubrick was a big fan of the film!

I guess the one thing that really stood out for me is that these two people really had nothing in common. Why would Mary want a guy who seems sweet but is really just obsessing about her? Once he gets that white picket fence and her behind it, to what will his obsessions turn?

MODERN ROMANCE is one of the great unsung film comedies. It's not for everyone, in that the comedy is possibly too close-to-the-bone for people who like their comedy nice and painless. But in the post-Seinfeld era, when Curb Your Enthusiasm is a cult favorite, it is looking more and more like Modern Romance was WAY ahead of its time.

Real Life, Lost In America, and Defending Your Life are all great, but for some reason this film stands out to me as Mr. Brooks' greatest cinematic effort. (Stanley Kubrick was a fan, too-- he was trying to make his own film about jealousy, which would end up being EYES WIDE SHUT two decades later.)

The real shame is that this film is the only Brooks effort never released on DVD. We can only hope that Criterion might rescue it from oblivion with a nice special edition (with commentary by Brooks!)

I love Albert Brooks. I cannot stress that enough. I was let down by this movie. Maybe I missed something? He breaks up "again" with his girlfriend and spends the rest of the movie pining for her and acting obsessively jealous.

The whole Quaalude bit was just lame and not funny although when he puts on the disco record and says it's depressing was funny. Even though his girlfriend kept saying she loved and missed him I never believed it. I always felt she wanted to be somewhere else with someone else, so in the end when he asks her to get married and she says yes I couldn't believe it. I didn't feel Albert was up to his full neurotic obsessive potential, like he was holding back. O.K. movie but probably only bearable to Albert Brooks fans.

Though only his second directorial outing, "Modern Romance" is arguably Brooks' finest film and is the single most insightful and hilarious examination of the gut-wrenching and mind-twisting ordeal that is love. Some have commented that the movie is not as polished as his later work, and while that may be true from a cinematic standpoint, it is this raw quality that lends itself to an even greater statement about how a man can be turned upside down and inside out as he tries to comprehend life while under the influence of love. Brooks' doppelganger, Robert Cole, is the epitome of the obsessed and doomed lover, a man who knows his love for a woman (brilliantly portrayed by Kathryn Harrold, as the haughty and insecure Mary Harvard) is unhealthy, but is compelled nevertheless to have her. His struggle with reason and love is the central theme to the film, yet even though Cole is depicted as an irrational neurotic, never once does Brooks make him unsympathetic. While Coles' actions in his pursuit of Mary defy reason, anyone who has ever been in love will understand all too well why he does the things he does.

This is perhaps that only movie for which it can be said that every single scene -- nay, every line -- is hilarious. Spectacular performances from Mr. Brooks, Kathryn Harold, Bruno Kirby, and terrific cameos from James L. Brooks (no relation), Bob "Super Dave Osborne" Einstein (who IS Brooks' brother....Yes, Albert Brooks real name is....Albert Einstein!), George Kennedy and, believe it or not, Harlem Globetrotter Meadowlark Lemon, whose scene with Brooks is a moment of surreal genius. If for no other reason, see this movie for "the movie within the movie" that Brooks' and Kirby's characters are editing.

I would say to those who, for whatever reason, do not like Albert Brooks -- either you find him irritating or just don't get his humor -- then do not bother, because Brooks is center stage for the entire movie and the humor is the very essence of "Brooks-ian". Yet even if the movie seems very personal, it speaks to all of the world's "fools in love", managing to embody and transcend the filmmaker. I happen to think he is one of the funniest and insightful observers ever of the human condition, but am aware his style is not universally loved.

Though made in 1981, it is as resonant now as it was then; and, considering that people, against all rational thought, will forever fall in love, this movie will always have something very insightful and extremely funny to say. For what it's worth, I have over the years rated almost a thousand movies and TV shows here at IMDb, and have given less than 15 "10 stars". "Modern Romance" is one of those few films, and deservedly so. I am not saying the movie is not without its flaws; but because of the nature and subject matter of the movie, and because it is painfully obvious that Albert Brooks' personal experience is very much on display, those flaws actually add to the genius of the work.