What a beautiful movie!

Waste of time

People are voting emotionally.

Just perfect...

We don't really get to understand the meaning of the title until the very last scene or two. It is a reference to doing something different, perhaps spontaneous, perhaps even 'naughty' instead of always doing the safe thing. As in when someone might say 'don't get carried away'. He did get 'carried away.'This is a love story between two people who are 30 years apart in age, in the 1960s. But it is also a love story about two same-aged teachers who have been friends for life, and have come to take each other for granted.Dennis Hopper, who was closer to 60, is 47-year-old teacher Joseph Svenden, living on a spread with his house and a barn and a small amount of land. He is 'dating' Amy Irving as Rosealee Henson, a fellow teacher and widow in this small rural community. They have a very safe relationship, they never 'get carried away.'Things get more interesting and more complicated when Amy Locane, who was probably 23 during filming, as 17-year-old Catherine Wheeler moves into the area to attend school and also ends up boarding her horse with Svenden. She is smart and experimental and quickly sizes up Svenden as an easy mark. One day soon after her horse arrives, he finds Catherine in the hay loft of the barn. They chat a bit, then she takes off her top to reveal a really nicely sculpted physique without a bra. What is a man, a schoolteacher, to do, since she is 17 and she is a student of his?The movie never delves into the deep moral or legal aspects of the situation. Instead it is a study of a man who is living out life with no excitement whatever and wondering how it would be to get 'carried away' before he dies.Gary Busey is good as Major Nathan Wheeler, Catherine's dad. Also good is veteran Hal Holbrook as the local physician, Doctor Evans, who sees just about everything that goes on in the community but does not judge too harshly. He understands what human nature is all about.SPOILERS: That first day when she takes off her top, Svenden is at first very surprised, then leaves the barn, but outside sees his elderly mother through the screen, weak and frail, then turns around and goes back to the, saying "I believe we should make love." Later we hear him tell that is was because he wanted to get 'carried away' for once. There is another scene, where he gets undressed in Rosealee's house, and encourages her to do so also, in spite of her reluctance. They had made love many times, in the dark, but this time he wanted them to 'get carried away' and do something daring. In the end everyone learned about the ongoing affair he was having with the student, even her dad understood, and in the very end Svenden and Rosealee appear to be headed for a life together, getting 'carried away' by romping into the sea surf in their street clothes.

I'm a big fan of Dennis Hopper - and this is one of his best works. I'm not sure if he came to the script or if this was just the perfect vehicle for his ability to play complexity - but such doesn't really matter.Busey was excellent when he's usually too much. Hal Holbrook was solid.The story was one that middle-aged men are frequently (more often than we may expect) confronted with. This was the most unsensational, honest, and thoughtful presentation of the conflict I've ever watched. Great flick for the thoughtful.There was a very sexual content - but never was it gratuitous. Every scene had a purpose. It was a rare film in that if you wanted to be entertained, it did that. If you wanted to provoke thought, it did that, too. How involved do you want to be?If you enjoy movies that leave you taking more than one position, and arguing with yourself about what is "right" this is the kind of flick you'd enjoy.

Often-volatile Dennis Hopper really gets a chance at a thoughtful dramatic performance here playing a Texas farmer and schoolteacher, semi-engaged to a fellow instructor, who is seduced by a teenage temptress. Low-keyed picture doesn't aim for shocking revelations or melodrama; it's exceedingly straightforward and just a bit dull. Good acting by Hopper, Amy Irving, Amy Locane (from "Cry Baby"), and Priscilla Pointer, though the movie could really use some adrenaline. Some nude scenes, filmed without a hint of titillation, are remarkable only for the fact that no one, including director Bruno Barreto, is energized by the sex--it's all kept very mundane. ** from ****

Oh my God! I finished watching "Carried Away." How disturbing! I can't see how someone as young and sexy as Amy Locane would find someone who looks like Dennis Hopper sexually arousing. Hot babes like that do not go for old men unless they are wealthy.***spoilers ahead*** Those sex scenes in "Carried Away" between Dennis Hopper and Amy Locane as well as the one sex scene between Amy Irving and Dennis Hopper looked so real it made "Wild Things" look like a kids' movie. This should be considered a porn film.I could have been spared the full frontal nudity of Dennis Hopper before his character had sex with Amy Irving's character. And it was odd that she did frontal nudity in this film when she swore against doing it in "Carrie." Then again, Amy Irving was a lot younger when she did "Carrie."