Nothing in Common (1986)

Someone mentioned about last night, which they also hated, well its the opposite for me. I was around the ages of the main characters when both these came out and liked both of them. In this movie, you sorta see the early goofy (but very Funny) Tom Hanks doing his transition to the more serious Hanks as the movie goes on. And pretty much was his last real comedy role. Hanks does his usual funny shtick and it works well. And Gleason is great, and sad as an aging ex great sales rep, trying to hang on to his cust. as a changing world leaves him without a place. And the divorce of Hanks Parents thrown in sorta makes this a bittersweet comedy. Overall, its a good movie.

NOTHING IN COMMON was a smart and sentimental comedy drama that offered a pre-Oscar'ed Tom Hanks one of his best earlier roles. Hanks plays David Basner, an advertising executive whose lightning-quick advancement at his company becomes hampered when has to start taking care of his father (Jackie Gleason, in his final film role)who has become completely helpless after his wife (Eva Maria Saint) has left him. This comedy takes some pointed and effective jabs at the advertising industry and still manages to be a warm family story as well. Hanks beautifully walks a fine line between comedy and drama in one of his better and nearly forgotten performances. Gleason is abrasive as the dad, but Saint is lovely as the mom. Sela Ward, Bess Armstrong, and Barry Corbin are also effective in supporting roles and the ending has been known to produce a few tears. An intelligent and heartwarming look at the choices that we sometimes have to make regarding career and family.

The film begins with a barrage of wit from Tom Hanks as an adman whose business is creativity. And indeed why should he not be witty? But then we meet his father, who is on his way to dying the death of a salesman, and his father is just as brilliantly witty. The lines just aren't lines that ordinary people could come up with. Everyone is a little too quick with the comedy, and when the comedy pauses, everyone is a little too quick to come up with the deep but gracefully phrased emotional revelations. And yet the movie is long; though most of the large cast of characters is quite undeveloped, still the script has a mighty load of relationships: Hanks with his father, Hanks with his mother (not so much), Hanks with two different girlfriends, the father with the mother, Hanks with his boss, and Hanks with the big client. The big client is perhaps the worst: the stereotype of the big blowhard who is charmed when you call him a big blowhard to his face.I think there were two movies here: the one about the workplace, with a little subplot about the father; and the one about the father, with a little subplot about the workplace. I suspect, with no huge evidence, that someone had an emotional investment in not leaving material out. Some of the details have the ring of autobiography.Several big talents appear in the movie: not only Jackie Gleason, Tom Hanks, and Eva Marie Saint but also Hector Elizondo and, in a tiny role, Dan Castellaneta. Nobody does anything here that he hasn't done better elsewhere, but still it's good to see them all.

I happened to catch this movie while I was in college in 1991. At the time though, I only saw the ending, but it really piqued my interest b/c the last scene where Tom Hanks is pushing a wheel-chair-bound Jackie Gleason down a hospital corridor through a windowed overpass was actually filmed where I was born -- Northwestern Memorial Passavant Hospital in Chicago. Years later, I was finally able to view "Nothing in Common" in its entirety on video, and while I liked some parts of it -- mostly b/c of its numerous Chicago location shots -- I thought the film's production value was a little bit low for a Hollywood film as it was produced and directed in such a way as to be reminiscent of network television soap operas and made-for-TV movies. The overlaid 80's soundtrack, for example, gave this movie a sappy feel and exuded tres gauche maudlin schamltziness, IMO. Nevertheless, Tom Hanks was great, as usual, in his reprisal of the sympathetic 'everyman' role that has now become his trademark, and I believe that this was Jackie Gleason's last performance. Sela Ward, however, is the number one reason to see this film, as she is from beginning to end the unequivocal scene stealer. Not only is Sela Ward hot hot hot, Ward brought a certain amount of authenticity in her portrayal of a big-city advertising executive circa 1980s. This is because long before Ward became a model and began her acting career, Ward, who majored in advertising at Ole' Miss, was a real-life advertising copywriter and exec on Madison Avenue in NYC in the late 70's and early 80's. Regardless, Ward's drop-dead gorgeousness did not detract from her believability as the cutthroat yuppie executive, Cheryl Ann Wayne, by one iota. Great Chicago references though, e.g., Wrigley Field, location shoots in neighborhood pubs, downtown scenes, etc.