It's Nick and Deborah Fifer's sixteenth anniversary; it's Los Angeles; it's Christmastime, 1990. The documentary evidence of the time and place mounts up to a tidy pile: the blanket of smog in the Valley; the Beverly Center shopping complex; car phones; waistband beepers; psych-speak ("Your needs were not being met," "Your wife became your mother," etc.); a white-face mime; a boom box; a multiplex cinema (juxtaposing Rocky V and Salaam Bombay!). The list goes on. Because the location remains essentially static, the evidence eventually starts to repeat itself; and the marital cycle of breakup-and-makeup repeats itself as well, more schematically. This is by way of saying that the movie, after running strong at the start, runs down toward the finish. Woody Allen and Bette Midler no doubt make an oddly matched couple, but that's the point, isn't it? And however refined their verbal personalities, their physiques (especially in an early romp on the bed) bring a blast of Real Life to screen sexuality. Directed by Paul Mazursky. (1991) — Duncan Shepherd
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