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California
Suite (1978)
Director:
Herbert Ross |
COUNTRY
USA |
GENRE
Drama/Comedy |
NORWEGIAN
TITLE
- |
RUNNING
TIME
103
minutes |
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Producer:
Ray Stark |
Screenwriter (based on his play):
Neil Simon |
Review
Uneven is an
understatement when it comes to describing Neil Simon's alternately heartfelt and
idiotic quiltwork California Suite. To start with the positives:
This is a film which deals perceptively with the effects of the sexual
and female liberation of the 1970s, and portrays the confusion and
unresolved positions the liberees have been left in. Simon suggests that
the freedom have made the women confused and nonplussed, whereas the men
have profited from the reduced responsibility in the wake of it all. He
might have had a point - even if it is not the one most people had in
mind.
The rest of this film,
however, is largely pointless, as Richard Pryor and Bill Cosby suffer
themselves through a seemingly endless array of overdone and unfunny
set-pieces of the worst slapstick comedy imaginable. There is no excuse
for Ross' poor handling of this material, and it only makes the contrast
to the beautiful and tender portrayal of the Caine/Smith relationship
more baffling. The strength of this material, as well as the potent and
relevant Kramer vs.
Kramer for amicable intellectuals, starring a
great-looking Alan Alda and an inspired Jane Fonda, should have been
treated with more respect. Instead, California Suite comes off as
a formal disaster, and a very unnecessary one at that.
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