A Little Romance

Dir. George Roy Hill

Academy Theatre

The title of A Little Romance is not a pun exactly: it is a slightly clever play on words A little romance, a little excitement, something a little diverting among the duller Stuff of ordinary lite A little romance, not a grand passion, but small, touching love story A little romance, a romance between little people A little romance, a flight of fancy The movie is all of these things.

Sounds soppy, right? Well, put it this way At the beginning of the movie, we catch a glimpse of one of George Roy Hill's earlier films. Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, dubbed into French later, we see his other big hit. The Sting, dubbed in Italian. (A must for all language students, this one!") And one way or another, we note how different A Little Romance is from those two.

The plot here, rather than being racy, is leisurely, not without interest, but not full of violent action or suspense What is interesting here is the inter-action of the characters, the two teenage lovers and their parents and so on (The and so ons are actually the best parts of the movie: heroine Lauren's best friend Natalia, with a mouth full of ironwork and a head full of Mills and Boon. Daniel's best friend whose father runs a porno cinema, and who dresses like a four toot five Humphrey Bogart, and of course the old pickpocket played by Laurence Olivier - well, he may once have been a hell of a Hamlet, but Polonius is about all he's up to these days)

Apart from the two principals, the rest of the cast have one thing in common: almost invariably they overact Especially in the case of Sally Kellerman, cast as Lauren's neurotic, philandering mother One can see why she hasn't had any part to speak of since M*A*S*H, where she played the original Hot Lips: she plays as if she's auditioning for the All Blacks.

Prima Performances

But the two principals are delightful. As Lauren, genius daughter of a much married socialite, an Amencaine in Paris, Diane Lane is absolutely delightful, subtle, and endearing Her opposite number, Daniel, the Parisian taxi driver's brilliant son, is played with equal sensitivity by Thelonius Bernard If George Roy Hill can get such performances out of his two stars, why is everyone else so heavy handed? Perhaps he is trying to make the two lovers seem isolated from the rest of the world, or [unclear: somesuch] if so, if doesn't work

I think it is possible to ignore these defects. There is something charming about this movie; it proves that you can be entertained by a film without violence, a peppering of obscenities, and torrid sex scenes (I was reminded of the old song that goes A line romance with no kisses: I think there are three in the whole film) It's rather nice to see a film where love means more than cor I fancy you, let's go to bed. It's nice to see a film where people do slightly crazy things, like running off to Venice to kiss under the Bridge of Sighs at sunset. It's nice to have a worthwhile film scored with Vivaldi's music instead of garbage like Kramer vs. Kramer. It's nice to see Europe as a habitable, and even beautiful and pleasant place, rather than as a[unclear: sor did] hell hole like in say La Luna. It's nice to think people still make films like A Little Romance, and it's a very pleasant way to spend an evening, especially at $2.75 a shot Highly recommended.

S.D.