Sept. 09, 2002 - 2:52 am
this film was nominated for Best Picture of 1991and it's therefore necessary to finish my current list. i will say that i didn't detest this film as much as i thought i would. i did sort of like it. it stars Nick Nolte and Barbra Streisand. i generally shrink at the thought of either of these two, but the were ok in this film. i'm sure this will probably be the only Barbra Streisand film i'll ever see, so i guess it's good that it didn't make me dislike her any more than i already did. if anything, she's not quite as offensive in my eyes now.
Nick Nolte's character Tom ends up coming to NYC in order to talk with his sister's psychiatrist about her past history after she has tried to commit suicide. Barbra Streisand is the psychiatrist, Lowenstein. along with his sister, Tom is also sort of teetering on the edge of sanity. he's dealing with a lot of the same pain that his sister is, which basically results from their insane family life in their youth, along with the recent loss of their older brother. as Tom tries to flesh out his sister's past for Lowenstein, he ends up telling her a lot about his own pains. eventually he begins to get some information out of her as well about her screwed up marriage and her poor relationship with her son. and then they basically fall in love with each other and there's like a 20 minute montage of them making love and talking to each other. that part rather sucked, but the ending was pretty decent.
i wasn't aware until just now that Streisand directed this. that has always seemed an insanely hard task to me, to direct yourself. she does a pretty fair job though. as i said i learned to like her just a tiny bit during the course of the film. this is also probably the best performance i've ever seen from Nick Nolte. he did get nominated for Best Actor for this, which i guess he rather earned.
well i think that's about all i've got tonight. only one more Best Picture nominee of the 1990s left to go. expect it within the next week or so. and then i'll be in pursuit of another list i'm sure.