Funny About Love (1990)

Funny About Love (1990) BOMB (out of 4)Duffy Bergman (Gene Wilder) is a cartoonist who has pretty much lived his life alone just the way he likes it. This all changes when he meets Meg (Christine Lahti) and quickly falls in love. The two are married and plan on having a kid but that proves to be complicated, which leads to a series of dramatic events.FUNNY ABOUT LOVE is a film that I've heard a lot about and none of it was good. It wasn't a success at the box office, it had some pre-release editing done to it and it ended up on most critic's worst of the year list. No matter what you read about this film there's really nothing that can prepare you for how truly awful it is. This film was directed by Leonard Nimoy and it features a terrific cast but everything just goes horrendously wrong and in the end its clearly one of the worst films of the decade if not one of the worst comedies of all time.The film apparently had an entire subplot that was cut out of the film, which had Farrah Fawcett as a love interest. It's pretty clear to see that something is missing from the film as the entire movie just feels like bits and pieces are missing. The movie will be going in one direction and the next thing you know something complete different is going on. I was a little confused at what the movie was trying to do, trying to say and I was wondering if the filmmakers knew what was going on.The film starts off as a romantic comedy and then out of nowhere we get some of the most out-of-touch drama I've ever seen. Just take a look at an early sequence where Wilder's mother attacks the couple for not having children. Throughout the film there are strange bits of dialogue, a really bizarre subplot dealing with Wilder and a much younger woman (Mary Stuart Masterson) and then there's the ending, which is just downright embarrassing. The entire movie was just so poorly made and so poorly written that you couldn't help but feel a bit depressed watching it.Normally Wilder could make just about anything work but that's not the case here. He's all over the map and it's clear he didn't get too much direction. Lahti tries to do what she can but her character isn't given any favors. Out of the cast it would be Mary Stuart Masterson who comes off the best but that's not saying too much. Robert Prosky, Susan Ruttan and David Margulies are all wasted in their parts. It makes you wonder what Fawcett would have done in the film.FUNNY ABOUT LOVE is a romantic comedy that has no laugh and certainly no romance. I really don't know what went so horribly wrong with this movie but it's certainly a misfire from the word go.

Friend Leonard Nimoy directed Gene Wilder in his 1990 film, Funny About Love. Also starring Christine Lahti and Mary Stuart Masterson, this romantic comedy showed the struggle of the human need to reproduce and the struggles that come with infertility. Funny About Love is nothing spectacular but goes the distance in describing a difficulty felt by 1 in every 8 couples with some humor. Human life is full of decisions, just as it is changing our minds about those decisions, Funny About Love shows this inextricable part of human life through one New York City couple. Duffy Bergman (Gene Wilder) is on top of the world in his field as a renowned political cartoonist. One night at a book signing he is hosting, he tastes some horrible cappuccino and since "coffee is very important to him" he decides he must meet the person responsible for the dreadful cup. When he is taken to her, he is instantly smitten with her beauty and attempts to get Meg (Christine Lahti) to agree to a date with him. Although initially reluctant, Meg is eventually won over by Duffy's lighthearted comedic disposition and agrees. The two eventually marry and decide, in spite of Duffy's reservations to have a child together. After three years of infertility treatment, Meg is dejected and sick of failure and wishes to stop trying to conceive. Never really getting over his uncertainties, Duffy was thrilled with Meg's decision. As Meg's culinary career kicks into overdrive during the respite from attempting to have a child, Duffy begins to actually want to have a baby. This time, it is Meg that is unsure and wants to wait to have a baby. The constant battle of when and if to have a baby proves to be too much for their marriage and the two separate. In their time apart, they both realize what they really want; but can they get what it is they want with each other?Gene Wilder plays the quirky jokester of a cartoonist well, and Christine Lahti plays his lighthearted wife well. The two share a beautiful on-screen chemistry making the otherwise forgettable film more fun to watch. There's nothing really to take away from this story unless you are a fan of one of the principles. The writing struggles through the entire film, being very abrupt in all the right places. I can't understand how Gene Wilder was in this film. The incredibly personal story line of the intense struggle of infertility and in- vitro fertilization after losing his wife the year prior to cancer after experiencing years of infertility. That is the aspect I take most from this film. I gain more respect for Wilder as an actor for being able to endure such a plot that so closely resembles his own life.

There is nothing quite so painful as a comedy that isn't, and unfortunately Gene Wilder is is making more and more of them. Normally both Wilder and Christine Lahti are talented performers, but this script would win awards for boring. Not only that, but Lahti and Wilder have no chemistry at all, and it just gets worse when Mary Stuart Masterson is brought into the picture.This is one of those "slice of life" 80's pictures that resemble nothing more than a bad Lifetime TV movie. Wilder's reactions run the gamut from unrealistic to inappropriate; when he's consoling Masterson in their break-up scene, it's like a father with a daughter, which (quite frankly) I found exceedingly creepy. The relationship with Lahti falls apart realistically enough, but with no humor, wit, or even insight possible as Lahti plays it straight and Wilder plays it far too broadly, even for a comedy.** SPOILERS **When he and Lahti get back together at the end, it's all rushed together, complete with an adopted baby coming out of nowhere, and with Lahti's lipstick still damp on Wilder's lips from their first kiss, she introduces Wilder and baby to a restaurantful of strangers as her family. For that matter, the way his mother dies (and how flip Wilder is about it throughout the rest of the movie) conflicts terribly with the way he treats his father when he starts dating again. Nothing in this movie makes any sense or bears any resemblance to human interaction.In short, no subtlety, no humor, no great or even good performances (none bad either, except the inexplicable Susan Ruttan, doing her autistic impression once again), no connection to reality whatsoever. Let's hope that Wilder hooks up with Mel Brooks and they both turn out something that makes us forget their work from the last fifteen years or so.

Okay, so it might not be Sherlock Holmes's Smarter Brother, but this film has tons of charm (Lahti is fantastic, as is Wilder), some strange little twists, and reassuring laughs.Watch it on a Sunday;-)