Girlfriends (1978)

          Director Claudia Weill made enough of a critical splash with Girlfriends, her award-winning debut fictional feature, that she seemed poised to become one of the few successful female directors in Hollywood. Yet after her second feature, the studio comedy It’s My Turn (1980), failed to generate excitement, Weill retreated into directing for television. Revisiting Girlfriends, it’s easy to see why she found a home in TV, since Weill is best at capturing the miniscule details of human interaction. Yet it’s also fair to suggest that had Weill come along a few years earlier, she might have thrived during the heyday of the New Hollywood. In any event, Girlfriends is appealing but slight, a character study about a young woman trying to find herself personally and professionally.

          Other filmmakers of the same era, notably Paul Mazursky, explored identical subject matter in pictures that were funnier and slicker than Girlfriends. However, Weill’s movie has a unique sort of intimacy, partially because it was shot on grungy 16mm film stock. Starring the decidedly unglamorous Melanie Mayron, the movie has the aesthetic of a modern indie flick, with humdrum locations and self-involved characters and an unresolved climax. In other words, it’s like life, whereas similar films from studios—even Mazursky’s fine efforts—tended to wrap the experiences of women in neat, I-am-woman-hear-me-roar bows.

          Written by Vicki Polon, Girlfriends concerns Susan Weinblatt, a meek photographer who makes her living shooting bar mitzvahs and weddings for Rabbi Gold (Eli Wallach). After moving through unsatisfying trysts with men, as well as thorny relationships with two very different gal pals—conformist Annie (Anita Skinner) and hippie Ceil (Amy Wright)—Susan grows a spine and starts demanding respect in the bedroom and the workplace. The small beauty of Weill’s movie is that it doesn’t reduce people to stereotypes. For instance, Susan’s boyfriend throughout most of the story, Eric (Christopher Guest), exhibits macho control issues while also manifesting sensitivity and understanding. Similarly, the married Rabbi Gold seems like a lech when he makes a pass at the much-younger Susan, but then a scene featuring his domineering wife reveals that he’s simply emasculated and lonely. One of the movie’s themes, therefore, relates to Susan learning how to provide her own compass for navigating a complex world, since no one else can offer sufficient guidance.

          Although the film is unfocused—despite the title, friendship is only one of many threads holding the story together—Weill and her collaborators compensate for the meandering narrative with scenes that ring true emotionally. The picture also benefits from amiable performances, with Mayron the obvious standout and Wallach lending brand-name credibility. Future comedy star Guest gives a solid dramatic turn (with hints of his signature deadpan humor), while Bob Balaban, subsequently to become a member of Guest’s quasi-repertory company, appears in a secondary role. Among the less familiar names, Skinner and Wright both deliver believable work.

Girlfriends: FUNKY

You Light Up My Life (1977)

          Wholesome singer Debby Boone’s rendition of the syrupy ballad “You Light Up My Life” was such a monster radio hit in 1977—and has remained such a staple of adult-contemporary radio—that Boone’s recording long ago eclipsed the original source of the song. Composed by Joe Brooks and sung by Kasey Cisyk, the tune first reached audiences as part of You Light Up My Life, a gentle romantic drama that Brooks wrote, produced, and directed. In the movie, Cisyk provides the singing voice for leading lady Didi Conn. (Boone re-recorded the song, for an LP of her own, after the film was completed.) Manipulative and mawkish, Brooks’ movie wants desperately to be the touching story of an underdog heroine surmounting incredible odds in her search for self-realization. But thanks to Brooks’ incompetence as a storyteller, and to Conn’s lack of star power, You Light Up My Life feels like a second-rate afterschool special.

          Set in Los Angeles, the story tracks the adventures of Laurie Robinson (Conn), a background singer and occasional TV actress. Growing up as the daughter of grade-Z comic Sy Robinson (Joe Silver), Laurie was groomed to be a comedienne, though music is her first love. For this particular story to work, circumstances must keep Laurie separate from music. Instead, Brooks depicts her as working professionally on music every single day. In fact, the filmmaker contrives a big scene during which Laurie happens into a recording session, prompting the producer of the session to record Laurie singing her song, “You Light Up My Life,” with a full orchestra. This is an underdog? Brooks also fails in depicting Laurie as a girl who’s unlucky in love. Early in the movie, she gets picked up in a bar and taken home by a handsome man; the next morning, she admits to her new lover that she’s engaged to someone else. This is Miss Lonelyhearts? One wonders whether Brooks wrote himself into such ridiculous corners because he was retrofitting a story to accompany his big song, or because he simply kept every one of his ideas without questioning whether those ideas meshed.

          In any event, the film’s vibe is strange—since the heroine is shown to have a caring father, enormous talent, a hot love life, a relatively successful career, and supportive friends, she doesn’t need anyone to light up her life. In screenwriting terms, therefore, Brooks’ project is a notion that never evolves into an actual story. Conn, who presumably earned a shot at a starring role because she was so endearing in the previous year’s hit musical Grease, wears out her welcome quickly, because she’s so bland and mousy that her performance becomes monotonous. (Costars Silver and Melanie Mayron add humanity to their roles, but they’re hamstrung by the vapidity of Brooks’ script.) You Light Up My Life is too kind-hearted and slick to actively hate, but in many ways, the picture is a case study of what not to do when constructing cinematic narratives.

You Light Up My Life: FUNKY

Harry & Tonto (1974)

          A triumph of naturalistic acting, sensitive writing, and unobtrusive direction, Harry & Tonto is one of the best character studies of the ’70s, a kind-hearted but completely unsentimental portrait of an everyman knocked out of his staid routine. Director and co-writer Paul Mazursky employs his acting background to nudge performers toward interesting behavior that’s devoid of actor-ish affectation, and he orchestrates the simple story with easy confidence, gently accentuating key moments.

          The story begins when aging New York City widower Harry Coombes (Art Carney) is forced out of his apartment because the building is scheduled for demolition—police officers literally carry him out to the street in his favorite easy chair, which is not only a memorably sad/funny image, but also a tart metaphor representing the movie’s theme of seniors for whom society has little use. Harry is dead weight, and he knows it, so all he wants to do is be left alone so he can enjoy life in the company of his affectionate marmalade cat, Tonto, to whom Harry sings old-time songs and with whom Harry enjoys nostalgic “conversations.”

          After the displacement, Harry and Tonto move in with Harry’s adult son, Burt (Philip Burns), but when it becomes apparent that Burt’s house is too crowded with family, Harry embarks on a cross-country adventure, ostensibly to visit his two other grown children but really to search for a new identity. Throughout the picture, Mazursky sketches Harry’s personality by throwing this rich protagonist into contrast with colorful supporting characters. Although seemingly straight-laced and uptight on first glance, Harry is actually an intellectual with a deep curiosity about human nature, allowing him to bond with everyone from his spiritually confused grandson, Norman (Josh Mostel), who has taken a vow of silence and adheres to a strict macrobiotic diet, to a restless young hippie, Ginger (Melanie Mayron), who left her family to join a commune.

          It’s immensely pleasurable to watch Mazursky and co-writer Josh Greenfeld subvert expectations in one scene after another, because the further Harry gets from his old environment, the more he embraces surprises—the simple act of discovering a larger world revives him in a way he never anticipated. Offering a broad tonal palette, Harry & Tonto alternates humor, pathos, and satire, often in the same scene. Harry’s combative visit with his daughter, Shirley (Ellen Burstyn), is fascinating because it reveals what a different dynamic he has with each of his children, and his melancholy encounter with a sweetheart from his younger years, Jessie (Geraldine Fitzgerald), is poignant because she’s lost in the ravages of dementia.

          Making Harry’s journey feel organic and purposeful is Carney, who won a well-deserved Oscar. Subtly employing the comic timing he displayed back in his Honeymooners days, Carney is brusque, inquisitive, and warm, portraying Harry as a man who learns to embrace change at an age when change is deeply frightening. It’s a beautiful performance, and Mazursky serves the performance well by crafting a brisk film that never lingers too long on any one sequence, instead building a strong head of emotional steam until the wonderfully bittersweet denouement.

Harry & Tonto: RIGHT ON