Word: caan
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Neil Simon's screen adaptation of his Broadway success Chapter Two takes this touching phenomenon seriously. Simon's central characters, a newly widowed writer (James Caan) and a newly divorced actress (Marsha Mason), snap zingers at each other during a wary meeting, a breathless courtship and a marriage that almost fails before it gets started, conforming to the theatrical convention Simon has created for himself. But they have the good grace to be self-conscious about their verbal twitchiness. They understand there are more important matters at stake here. As a result, the movie is rather blurred...
...Robert Moore chooses to transform Simon's play into film. It's obvious Chapter Two was a play first, because virtually all of the heavy dialogue takes place in one room. The camera moves aimlessly from corner to corner, without knowing where to focus after a while. And when Caan and Mason aren't thrashing out all of the problems in their stalemate of a marriage, there's no action to speak of, only snapshots of the honeymoon couple in Bermuds...
...biggest trauma of the movie is trying to decide if you dislike James. Caan more for rushing into a marriage he wasn't mentally prepared for, or Neil Simon, whom you wish had never dramatized these recent events from his life. The plot, no matter how true, still produces one of Simon's most uninteresting relationships. And we've come to expect quite a bit from the creator of Oscar and Felix, and, more recently, the wonderful role of Elliot Garfield in The Goodbye Girl...
...fairely silly, and the tension doesn't hold up when juxtaposed to Richard Dreyfuss leaving Mason for the West Coast in The Goodbye Girl. Then we really cared, but now we wish Simon hadn't worn his sould on his sleeve for all the world to see. Caan's portrayal of George, as well as Simon's impotent screenplay, causes our discontent. We're used to Caan as a macho character, but here he plays a writer "not gorgeous, but sweet-looking, with an intelligent face" (how he's described to Jennie) and he just can't pull...
Marsha Mason provides a foil for Caan in much the same spirit as she did for Dreyfuss--whiny, forceful when need be, a bit overwhelmed--and we accept her much more willingly. She understands her role and little wonder--in real life she's Mrs. Neil Simon. She does have a definite advantage over Caan in that respect...