BEFORE: It may seem a little weird to drop a romantic comedy in here, because I usually handle them during February - and that was the original plan when I recorded this film to go on a DVD with "Danny Collins", which I watched last year. The only problem now is that this doesn't link to any of my other romance-based films on the February schedule, but it does link here, with Nathan Lane carrying over from the archive footage of "I'm Still Here". So this one goes here in January, because I'm trying not to save anything for February 2019, and this helps get me to February 2018.
Anyway, there's a nice tie-in with all the films this year set in diners and restaurants - Pee-Wee Herman worked in the town diner in "Pee-Wee's Big Holiday", then the three main characters in "Going in Style" met at the (Clinton) diner to plan their heist. Then Nick and Cora ran the diner in "The Postman Always Rings Twice", followed by Frank and Cora doing the same. Plus a lot of "The Comedian" took place in comedy clubs and "I'm Still Here" featured some nightclubs, but that's not exactly the same thing.
THE PLOT: Johnny, who has just been released from prison, gets a job in a café beside waitress Frankie. Frankie is a bit of a loner, but Johnny is determined that their romance will blossom.
AFTER: This is really just an average romance film, playing off the formula of putting two damaged people together and watching them work out a relationship that works for both of them - the old "Two Wrongs Somehow Make a Right" concept. He's an ex-con, she's a lonely waitress. He's divorced, she got cheated on by her last boyfriend, and so on. He's desperately lonely, she's wary about opening herself up to a new relationship - she feels that with a new VCR and take-out food, there's simply no need to date. Ah, the 1980's version of "Netflix and chill", but somehow "Local video store and solitude" just doesn't have the same ring to it.
Look, she's already got a busy life, between working at the diner, playing on a bowling league (which somehow also includes everyone who works at the diner) and feeling sorry for herself, that doesn't leave a heck of a lot of time to date. And this was a different time, people didn't meet each other via Facebook or Tinder or Match.com - back then you were limited to people recommended to you by friends, or people you met in bars, or people you worked with. And back then it also wasn't as frowned upon to hook up with people you worked with or make sexual innuendos with your co-workers. Oh, sure, the boss may not have liked it, but it's not like there were rules against it put in place by the H.R. department...
Beyond that, tonight's time capsule of a film has references to the age of AIDS and the gay rights movement, both through the obligatory "we can't have sex without condoms" scene and the introduction of the blatantly gay best friend, who's in a loving committed relationship with another man, because they have those too, don't you know. If I didn't already know this film was based on a play produced in the 1980's, it wouldn't have been too difficult to figure that out.
Also starring Al Pacino (last seen in "Danny Collins"), Michelle Pfeiffer (last seen in "Sweet Liberty"), Hector Elizondo (last heard in "The Lego Batman Movie"), Kate Nelligan (last seen in "Dracula" (1979)), Jane Morris, Greg Lewis, Al Fann, Ele Keats, Fernando Lopez, Glenn Plummer, Sean O'Bryan (last seen in "Vantage Point"), Phil Leeds (last seen in "He Said, She Said"), Goldie McLaughlin, Shannon Wilcox, K Callan, DeDee Pfeiffer (last seen in "Into the Night")
RATING: 4 out of 10 runny eggs
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