Best Friends (1982)

Cast includes:
CHARACTER	ACTOR/ACTRESS	RATING
Richard Babson	Burt Reynolds
Paula McCullen	Goldie Hawn
Larry Weisman	Ron Silver	½
Ellie McCullen	Jessica Tandy
Tim McCullen	Barnard Hughes	½
Ann Babson	Audra Lindley	-
Tom Babson	Keenan Wynn	-
Nellie Ballou	Carol Locatell	-
Lyle Ballou	Noah Hathaway	-
Jorge Medina	Ricard Libertini

Review

Norman Jewison (In the Heat of the Night, Rollerball) directed this supposedly romantic comedy about a middle-aged writing couple acting like teenagers at the behest of their respective parents. Barry Levinson and Valerie Curtin wrote the script, based on their own relationship, and it's not too difficult to spot the authenticity and potential, but the script limits itself and gets too hung up on its own conundrums. After a fun start, in which the chemistry between stars Burt Reynolds and Goldie Hawn is palpable and very much enjoyable, the film starts to drag when our couple go on their road-trip to their in-laws. It's all obviously meant to feel claustrophobic, but the film isn't just suffocating its protagonists, it's also suffocating itself. There's a lack of perspective in here, which the filmmakers try to make up for with babbling Allenesque dialogue, making the film's various stages seem perpetual and unforgiving. Reynolds and Hawn not only wear each other out, they also wear this entire film out. And Jewison never is able to find the tools to lift Best Friends out from its own misery. It could have been a good movie.