Word: nicholson
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...could they ever have believed it would work? Both Rachel Samstat (Meryl Streep) and Mark Forman (Jack Nicholson) had been through this marriage stuff before, unsuccessfully. She was a chronic worrywart; he was a legendary sexual goat. "I don't believe in marriage," she said. "Neither do I," he replied. Only one of them was joking. And yet they did have fun. She made him salads at 4 in the morning; he made her laugh with a manic-heroic rendition of Soliloquy from Carousel. He would be, she thought, just the guy to offer sex, schmoozing and comic relief, between...
...fall out with a crash. So why are these opposites attracted to each other? Not because Rachel is a food writer and Mark is a Washington columnist. But because, up there on the screen, Rachel is Meryl Streep, swathed in easy glamour, and Mark is that cuddly predator Jack Nicholson. Heartburn is a movie about old- fashioned Hollywood star quality -- the sort that, say, Irene Dunne and Cary Grant radiated almost 50 years ago in another love-and-divorce comedy, The Awful Truth -- and about how the glow of celebrity can blind anyone, especially a spouse, to the black hole...
...endearments into the mouths of Tracy and Hepburn (Desk Set) and adapted Carousel for Hollywood. In Mike Nichols, Ephron fille has found the perfect director for her skewering humor. Once he invigorated cabaret comedy as half of the Nichols and May team; now he orchestrates the romantic abrasions of Nicholson-Streep and the nifty cameos of Steven Hill as Rachel's flighty dad and John Wood as a nightmare Alistair Cooke. Generous and precise, Nichols shoots many scenes in long takes, observing the characters like a decorous dinner guest. Always alert to gestural cinema, he takes his time following...
...dialogue that Streep's fine, suggestive face carries on with the viewer. Stranded in rage, this Rachel has only the camera as her therapist, and Streep will turn to it as to a friend, confiding a querulous eyebrow or subtle grimace, simultaneously inhabiting and commenting on her role. Nicholson has a tougher assignment. He is, here, only half a man, all surface and no substance, and finally he distances himself from Mark, his face going slack in a kind of moral torpor. But when he smiles at Rachel like a cat with Tweety Pie feathers on his lips or croons...
...Streep manages to overcome the burden of Nicholson and if anything, we like her Rachel more because she is able to deal with him. As well as Nicholson, another drawback to this movie is the fact that the audience misses out on some key scenes. For instance, you never see Rachel in Lamaze classes, although you do see her give birth twice. Perhaps these absences stand out even more clearly because Heartburn is so credible...