After
subjecting the world to the horrors of You
Light Up My Life, both the sickly-sweet song of that name and the vapid
romantic movie from which the song was derived, Joseph Brooks struck again with
this spectacular misfire. For the previous project, Brooks served as producer,
writer, composer, and director. For If
Ever I See You Again, he also stepped in front of the camera to make his
acting debut as the leading man in a big-budget motion picture. Whether
hubristic or naïve, Brooks’ decision to cast himself ranks among the worst
choices in mainstream filmmaking history, though it’s not as if a real
performer could have elevated the laughable material. Everything about If Ever I See You Again is false, from
the characters to the emotions to the plotting, so in a perverse way, Brooks’
lifeless performance adds just the right grace note. He plays Bob Morrison, a
successful writer of TV-commercial jingles. Back in college, he romanced a
quixotic woman named Jennifer, and today, now that he’s a widowed father of
two, he’s feeling nostalgic. One fateful day, when Bob’s work takes him from
New York to Los Angeles, he looks up Jennifer’s number and calls her. Surprised
to hear from her old lover, Jennifer (Shelley Hack) invites him to visit her
groovy beach house. And so begins their second attempt at an on-again/off-again
relationship.
Brooks is such a weak storyteller that he doesn’t even include
the most obvious narrative obstacle, another man in Jennifer’s life.
Accordingly, one gets the impression that she’s been sitting around for years
waiting for Bob to call, even though she repeatedly pumps the brakes on their
courtship. Jennifer is not a character so much as a vague object of desire, a
problem exacerbated by former model Hack’s acting. Her work is as bogus and
empty as Brooks’. While enduring some poorly made romantic movies, the audience
struggles to care whether onscreen people will get together. While enduring If Ever I See You Again, you may find
yourself struggling to care whether onscreen people exist. While every scene
with Brooks and Hack is almost hypnotically bad, the rest of the picture is
frustrating because of the technical skill on display—cinematography, editing,
and the like are all aces here—and because vignettes
depicting, say, ad-agency meetings and recording sessions have easygoing realism. Furthermore, it’s
bizarre to encounter famous writers Jimmy Breslin and George Plimpton in
supporting roles. On the fringes, If Ever
I See You Again resembles a real movie—but where it matters, Brooks’
sophomore effort is astoundingly awful.
If Ever I See You Again: LAME
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