Love Hurts (1990) Reviews

• It hurts to watch this film, but Jeff Daniels is very good

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  Paul (Jeff Daniels) is a womanizer. It ruined his marriage, as his wife divorced him about one year ago. He is repentant, naturally, but just can't seem to stop chasing the females. Going home to Pennsylvania for a wedding, he encounters his ex-wife, his children, his dotty mother, his alcoholic father, and the bride, his jittery sister. While waiting for the wedding to occur, Paul and his family go through one trial after another. Paul even makes passes at one of the bridesmaids. Will he ever learn? This film is so tuned to reality that it is a downer to watch. Daniels gives an outstanding performance as the likable guy with big flaws. Sikes also does a fine job as the ex-wife with a lot of baggage. The ending strives to approach a more upbeat tone. Fans of Daniels will want to see this work. All other viewers should be cautioned that it is not a romantic comedy. It is a dark comedy at best, with the happy romance vibes registering a zero on the love meter.

• CINEMATIC TRIUMPH FOR SKILL AND TALENT.

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  This is an excellent film in every manner with the impulse behind its artistic success being the script by Ron Nyswaner, wry, witty and moving, each in its turn, detailed when it needs to be, and only suggestive, when that is appropriate. Varying concepts of what a person's home is and what it should be molds this comedic drama, the final directoral essay by Bud Yorkin, and unjustly overlooked or carelessly reviewed. Jeff Daniels portrays Paul Weaver, freshly divorced but not having altered his causative rakish ways, obligated to sojourn at the home of his parents for the wedding of his sister (Amy Wright), an awkward circumstance as his former wife (Cynthia Sikes) and two children are temporarily living there due to plumbing troubles in their own house. Paul is eager to become closer to his estranged children, but his daughter Sarah (Mary Griffin) has toted an abundance of resentment with her and is puzzled by the obviously ongoing mutual attraction between her parents. During a hectic nuptial weekend, Paul finds an available exchange of ardour with a bridesmaid (Judith Ivey) and this, along with his damaged association with his father (John Mahoney) supplies additional provender for Nyswaner's well-crafted script. Yorkin's fastidious direction allows for able ad libbing from Daniels and Wright, and is nicely supported by resourceful camerawork from Adam Greenberg who employs classic technique when isolating Weaver within a disquieted environment, by superb editing from John Horger, and by faultless sets and costumes from Leslie Rollins and Elizabeth McBride, respectively. In the last analysis, the film fares well because of attention to detail, originating largely from the writing of Nyswaner who strongly evokes small-city working-class Pennsylvania (although primarily shot near Dallas-Fort Worth) with each scene neatly sculpted and generally avoiding the cliched, helped by strong acting through the final scene, remarkable itself for its insouciant sense of actuality.

• Ordinary plot with extraordinary details

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  Jeff Daniels is one of my favorite actors. Reason good enough to watch the movie that otherwise didn't seem to promise much. Daniels plays Paul, going through a divorce after his family left him a year ago. Trying to stay in the saddle and keep the pieces of his life together he enjoys single life as much as he can, but it's not easy after divorce papers come and this life chapter approaches its end. However, we will find out that he led similar life during marriage years, and that was the main reason his wife Nancy, though still loving him, took the children and returned to her home town. Daniels is always Daniels. He is not Johnny Depp, who gives a new, different performance each time he stands in front of camera, acting new way, looking new way, being someone new. No, Daniels can't do it. He isn't a de Niro hero, and not a Hoffmann loser who can both now and then successfully turn to be opposite. He is average, ordinary man we see every day on the street, in post office, train or on stairs we go down from our own flat. So it all depends on the writer who must imagine a new story for this character, and it has to be an everyday story that Daniels can fit in. But if the story is good, he can return the favor of getting the role by playing it brilliant. Yes, he had his character on the top in "Purple Rose of Cairo", and the one on the bottom in "Dumb and Dumber", but he always returned to that simple face we even see in our bathroom mirror (if we have just a little luck in our lives). Maybe more than ever he is like us, he makes mistakes one after another, sometimes careless, sometimes ruthless... just like we do. And here we have a perfect ordinary story about everyday people, as if they came from any early afternoon TV movie with a little Oprah dressing. So you can watch with one eye closed, expecting endless clichés and probably a instant-sugared happy ending with screaming moral message. And you'll be wrong! First you see Daniels making love to a woman, things look nice until we find he doesn't know her name and her husband is just returning home before he was expected. We see man talking to his neighbors while Daniels runs away in hurry. So, we met five people in first two minutes. And four of them we'll never see again. In the same style we'll be introduced to few dozen characters and we have to concentrate who they are, because we can never be sure if they'll appear behind the corner, few days later or never again. This is a structure of real life, we meet many people, but their importance varies from being our daily environment, even our best friends, to someone we don't remember as soon as we turn our head the other side. Yet, though Paul is main character, it is not a movie that follows its star minute after minute; we jump from New York to Pennsylvania and see his family and their problems. Most of the characters will finally meet together, have some deeper or, more often, superficial influences one on another, and the story gets its shape in second half. People who kept using only half of one eye either gave up of or fell asleep. Those who weren't afraid to follow this Altman-like collection of people and destinies are now awarded. And while American TV movies and Oprah stereotypes dangerously spread their wings above this little Pennsylvania town, don't overlook how the plot develops. Paul and his wife can't live together, but don't hate each other (as it's usual); yet they are almost unable to communicate. Children are with their mother, they seem to hate father (mother had a whole year to make them do it), especially the daughter. But we will learn that she misses New York, and blames father more because she had to leave than for bad family relations he had caused. At the end she leaves her mother and returns to live with Paul. (Finally we find a father-daughter relation free of abuse and hints of incest.) Seeing compromises other people have to make even Paul an his ex-wife reconsider their future, and though they stay apart their relation stays open as well as the movie ending. No Hollywoodish forced happy-end, and no feminist pamphlet. Thank God and Yorkin! Except director's excellent work, we can also enjoy some great supporting roles (Mahoney, Wright, Griffin...), while some stay pale. Bacharach made an unexpected retiring score, with not a single song Dionne Warwick could sing in or after the movie. But after all, it all depends on two things: if you like ordinary stories made just a bit differently, and more than that, if you like Jeff Daniels.

• Underrated comedy-drama made passable by the strength of its good performances

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  By the beginning of the 1990's Jeff Daniels was mostly known as a leading man in indie comedies like Jonathan Demme's "Something Wild", or he had supporting roles in mainstream dramas like the Oscar- winning "Terms of Endearment." His only real mainstream leading performance came in 1990's Arachnophobia, in which his performance there didn't get the recognition it deserved, as more attention went to John Goodman's role as well as the story and special effects. He was still a few years shy of his roles in Speed and Dumb and Dumber, both released in 1994, that would turn him into a household-name character actor. In between all of those films was this little, hidden, 1990 flick, which got no real critical reviews or audience recognition upon release and mostly remains unknown by the public today. Having enjoyed Daniels other aforementioned roles, I was curious to see if this was a hidden gem, or a piece of trash that should remain in obscurity. Well it's not quite a gem, the story is pretty familiar, and it certainly isn't worth the obscurity status it has received since its release. There are some very good performances here from Daniels and John Mahoney from Fraiser and Cloris Leachman from The Mary Tyler Moore Show. You have seen this story before in many other movies and sitcoms. Daniels plays a playboy-ish New York City insurance salesman who finalizes his divorce with his ex-wife played by Cynthia Sikes. He bought a country house in Pennsylvania for he and his wife and children to live in, but the wife claimed it after the divorce. The ex-wife and children are evacuated from their home as repairs have to be done for six weeks, so they all move in with Daniels' parents played by Mahoney and Leachman. Amidst all of this Daniels sister is getting married, and knowing his ex-wife will be in attendance at the wedding, he initially declines his wedding invitation until his boss convinces him to do otherwise. So Daniels' goes to spend the weekend with his profane, alcoholic father, a mechanic, and his sweet-natured housewife mother. Along the way he attempts to seduce a young, attractive woman whom he almost hits with his car, who is married to an abrasive painter until he finds out that this woman is a bridesmaid in his sister's wedding. Will he choose her, will he attempt to seduce his ex and win her back? What becomes of the rest of his family? The rest of the movie focuses all on those details. Daniels manages to squeeze in a few laughs from his dialogue and delivery, but where his performance really scores high is in his more poignant moments. He brings a lot of be-livability into his role and we sympathize with him, while also realizing he is a man with a lot of weight on his shoulder because of his past mistakes and wants a second chance to make things right. Mahoney gets the biggest laughs in the movie. His role here is far different from Martin Crane. He is the dad who is like-ably goofy, yet an embarrassment to his family at the same time. Leachman is sadly given very little to do and her role could have really been expanded. Burt Bacharach's score also gives the movie merit and the score is very pleasant and captures the plot very well. The director is Bud Yorkin who redeems himself here after directing the ill-fated Arthur 2: On the Rocks a few years earlier. The film also has nice locations. It has a bit of a Frank Capra like quality from It's a Wonderful Life in capturing the small-town life. This is not an outstanding movie by any means. It's not an underrated gem that many will claim as a forgotten masterpiece all these years later, but it is a heartfelt, sincere comedy-drama in spite of its routine story and it has good performances, music, direction and writing for it to be worth a look for sure. On a side note: I was disappointed to see that the song "Love Hurts" by Nazareth didn't get played at all during the film. I kept expecting it but it didn't turn up. They should have included it at some point during the film.