You won't be disappointed!

good back-story, and good acting

It's entirely possible that sending the audience out feeling lousy was intentional

Story: It's very simple but honestly that is fine.

Plot (or what there is of it)—Husband Blume is divorced by wife Nina after she catches him philandering. Trouble is he still loves her and spends the rest of the time trying to get her back. So how is true love distinguished from true obsession.Critic Leonard Maltin calls the movie "self-indulgent" and he's right. It's like writer-director Mazurski has gone off on his own personal tangent and made a movie of it. Segal does manage a role in low-key style that could have easily gone over the top. Too bad there's no hint of his very real comedic skills, which I somehow kept expecting. Also, he may get more close-ups than my favorite puppy. As Nina, Anspach has a different look with her long thin face and cloud of platinum hair. Hers is the more interesting character as she struggles with middle-class conventions like marriage. But what's with Shelley Winters' tacked on role as a grieving divorcée. Perhaps Mazurski was reminding casting directors what an inimitable presence she is.Arguably, the film's best parts are those reflecting political (the farm workers) and youth culture (the "swingers" meeting place) of the early 1970's. It seems Nina is groping for a life outside the conventional but is emotionally stuck halfway. Anyway, her character is the more interesting of the two. At the same time, Elmo (Kristofferson) appears more like a rootless hippie, while Nina connects with that unconventional side. Even Blume seems attracted when a kind of unconventional threesome forms. Nonetheless, such deeper themes remain conjectural, while the movie itself over-stretches into a barely entertaining two hours that a graphic rape scene doesn't help. All in all, Mazurski's screenplay may be based on a personal experience that somehow got carried away.

***************WARNING MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS**************Made in the seventies by director Paul Masursky with George Segal Kris Kristofferson, Susan Anspach and Shelley Winters. I first saw this on ex-rental video and was surprised that it was (and still is), a good film. I'm not a big Masursky fan but he was modish for a period and his work rose to prominence with the romantic comedy Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice, which I have never seen because it was considered too risqué for children. (Definitely showing my age here, folks).As a follow-up, 'Blume in Love' is another thoughtful and funny meditation about relationships, seen from the point of view of Segal (as Blume) trying to win back his ex-wife who has left him and made a life of her own that, unfortunately, no longer includes him. Blume's wife has shacked up with a musician and dropped out of the middle class rat race. Since he is a lawyer, Blume believes that his wife is being unfair by comparing his uptight lifestyle with that of her boyfriend. As a result, he takes action of a drastic nature which only serves to alienate his wife even further.Blume appears to be a loser in love and Segal gives us a sympathetic portrayal of a romantic who is confused, but lovable. His wife may not love him but the audience is meant to. There are some amusing situations and interesting observations about the 70's singles scenes when women were supposedly liberated. That did not mean however, that they were necessarily happy. There is an excellent dream sequence later on in the film, shot outdoors in Venice as Segal imagines that he has successfully retrieved his wife from the hands of the hippie wastrel Elmo (as played by Kris Kristofferson). The sequence is set against a backdrop of classical music and a lot of flying birds in a beautiful looking Venetian square densely populated with many Italian people sipping on their cappuccinos. It serves to illustrate the Hollywood belief (or is it cliché?) of the eternal nature of romantic love and Blume's foolish hopefulness that his wife will reject Elmo and return to him.Susan Anspach plays Blume's ex-wife, (she was also Woody Allen's ex-wife in Play it Again, Sam) and Shelley Winters has a single scene as a client of Segal's (if I haven't already mentioned Blume is surprise! a divorce lawyer) which is quite funny but seems irrelevant to what is going on in the rest of the movie. Maybe its meant to illustrate how neurotic divorced women are supposed to be, who knows?'Blume in Love' is the type of film that will leave cynics to protest about how warm and fuzzy it makes them feel while the rest of us will have no reason to complain. 'Blume in Love' is delightfully wry and observant and I hope this review reveals my fondness for it

Paul Mazursky gave us three fine films: Blume in Love, Harry & Tonto and Moscow On the Hudson, and a host of lesser works that we can still enjoy. I can't think of many American directors of the last half-century with a record like his. Blume In Love is obviously influenced by Truffaut's Jules and Jim, but is funnier, faster and not indebted to literary models as Truffaut's film was.The triangle of Blume, Nina and Elmo works so well because of Kris Kristofferson's easy charm and rock star charisma. The story would have foundered on Blume's obsessiveness and Nina's Puritan desire to do good ("I haven't done much for the farmworkers, but I boycott the supermarkets") had Elmo not been around to keep things light. The story he tells of the bust in Franklin, Tenn. is wonderfully funny, although a little scary, and the trio's singing Chester the Goat is a delight.I became a George Segal fan when I first saw this movie, and I can't help but lament the lack of intelligence and depth in today's actors when I see what he does with this difficult character. Marsha Mason is his equal in talent, playing Arlene, Blume's vulnerable lover who knows her days are numbered. The smaller roles are ably filled, particularly Shelley Winters as the woman whose husband left her.

I have enjoyed Paul Mazursky's direction on a few occasions, notably in Harry and Tonto. I like his work in Blume in Love as well, but am close to being disgusted with the repulsive ending. George Segal plays Blume, an obnoxious ex-husband of Susan Anspach. He has an overactive libido that gets him in trouble in this film in more ways than one. He spends the majority of the movie pining over the loss of his wife while comprehending why he can't perform sexually the way he wants to. The end of the story really got my goat (and yes, there is another goat in this picture I won't comment on here). Rape is no laughing matter, committed by anyone no matter what the situation. This film made light of the whole occurrence, and made Kris Kristofferson (Anspach's live-in boyfriend) look like a putz. To top it all off, the film ends happily, with the wrong people (immorally) getting back together. I would have been more content if the film stayed on its obsessive keel, maybe even if it went into a screwball comedy. Unfortunately, it traverses into absurdity and non-sensical behavior. I enjoyed the first half of this, had a bit of a titter or two, but was most displeased in Blume in Love's finish. Rating: Two stars.