Sadly Over-hyped

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

These incredible mustache and never-ending blonde hair really take us by surprise, how are we supposed to react with such a character? And it would be nothing if it was just for the physical appearance … His name is Seymour Moskowitz, as the namesake Cassel, a beatnik, whose car-parking job keeps him in constant movement. In fact, his whole life is made of movements, so abrupt and brutal; we never have time to see him moving. Seymour drives, comes, enters, gets in, gets out, and we're like stuck with the camera, unable to follow his track. Cassavetes direction of Seymour's character totally conveys the image of a man in advance, with a kind of irreverent and hasty attitude. Even the opening credits came back ten minutes after the film started … as if Seymour didn't let us time to get used to the film. He's the iconoclast, the rebellious one, the man we find in a place right after losing him in another. No time for transitions.And there is Minnie Moore, another character, another attitude, another direction. Minnie takes the cab, walks on the street or down the stairs, we have time to follow her, to listen to her, to her melancholic rant against the way cinema manipulates people with unrealistic romances. We have time to see her smiling, yawning, winking. The beautiful Gena Rowlands is guided by a more conventional timing, almost too slow sometimes. But this slowness is Cassavetes' depiction of Minnie, a lonely character, whose life is so empty and boring, the simplest steps are stretched and painful. She's the opposite of Seymour, he's active, and she's passive. Almost tired of her loneliness, she lost the strength to wait for the big love, though she keeps hoping to find one. She's romantic because she has an ideal but seems to drown herself in a lake of pessimism. No stability.Everything oppose the two Ms. And the talent of both Cassel and Gena, combined with Cassavetes' direction, highlights these differences. Even in little details: Seymour sees a passionate Bogie from "The Maltese Falcon" while Minnie contemplates the last scene of "Casablanca". Their opposition is the spice that gave the film its flavor. This is not an attempt to label this film, but it does feature the basic elements of a screwball comedy, that created such masterpieces as "It Happened One night", but here, the comedy is authentic without being unintentional, I mean laughs are not a priority but a natural way to underline the peculiarity of this couple. Cassavetes delivers the message that comedy only works when it trusts enough our intelligence not to deliver cheap laughs, as Seymour says in one of my all-time favorite quotes: "When you think of yourself of funny, you become tragic". True words of wisdom.Seymour hates the idea of taking stuff too seriously, he's indeed spontaneous, speaks loudly, and asks for respect. He speaks about practical stuff like car, money, life, and his approach to love is also practical, which makes it even more sincere. Minnie is more melancholic, she wants to be loved with normality, whenever she's with a man who acts like a maniac, and she's obviously embarrassed and masks herself with huge and black sunglasses. The disastrous date with Zelmo Swift, with an extraordinary comical performance by Val Avery, is ironic because she's helped by Seymour who reveals himself as en even weirder character. But with something new: a clear idea of what he loves, and one thing for sure he loved Minnie at first sight, and understood, despite her normality, that she was a misfit, just like him. This is the key element of the romance's sincerity and what makes it so unique, so poignant. The music of the "I love you truly" song is one of my favorite love themes, representative of my personal idea of romance ...And what will naturally happen is a fantastic adventure where we'll be driven by two opposite rhythms and an unconscious refusal to respect the conventions. They can't have a normal rendezvous and are fatally forced to dine in a sandwich shop turning their backs to the road, to conventionality. They're always in the border of a road, their love, their complicity, through a beautiful dance scene, is expressed in a parking area, as a symbol for the transition that needed Seymour's life, and the stability for Minnie. Minnie's destiny was like a car not meant for Seymour, but he managed to park in his heart. And to conclude, even the expected declaration of love was original: not at night, not during a beautiful sunset, but at the morning, after Seymour just finished with a hooker. Again, Cassavetes' directing is a tribute to life's extraordinary unpredictability. This unpredictability governs the film from beginning to end, the two characters are so different we can never know what's going to happen, every silence can lead either to a kiss or a burst of anger, no smile is to be taken for granted and we have to wait until the very end, until the marriage proposal to expect a happy ending. And then again, when they meet the two mothers, it's surprisingly Seymour's mother who almost ruins everything, an unforgettable Katherine Cassavete's presents her son, as a bum. "Einstein, he's not", "Not a pretty face" reminding of Minnie's cruel "This is not the face I dreamed of". Indeed, this is not your typical romance, Cassavetes wants to get detached from conventions and make romance governed by the rules of life. His film illustrates Minnie's point about manipulative romances. But as independent as he is, this is still a light-hearted comedy with two likable characters who deserved a break, and after Cassavetes made his point, we needed a break from this exhausting experience, and to end the film with the happy ending, letting us assume that Minnie and Moskowitz, one of the most endearing cinematic couples will live happily after and have many children

Gena Rowlands and Seymour Cassel star in this tale of love found among imperfect people. Gena tells a girlfriend of hers that all these old movies they see set the bar up too high for today's (the 1970s) generation. There are no heroes, no gentlemen on a white steed, no Bogies. Then, she chances to meet Seymour Cassel, who just moved to California. He is a parking-lot attendant and intercedes for her to get rid of an eccentric date and gets into a fight. Thus, their friendship and interest in each other begins.I must admit this was rather funny in an unusual way, with the viewer laughing almost nonstop at Seymour's unashamed passion for Gena, with such outrageous statements, like "I can't think straight when I'm around you. I can't even remember to go the bathroom, when I'm around you." And, they seem to be constantly either yelling at each other or eating or asking each other, are you hungry. It's kind of haphazard in its pace. But at least it keeps you guessing and keeps the viewer interested. But the constant zigzag-ness of it makes me feel as if the script was thrown together.It's not inherently bad, but with so much of everything thrown in, it doesn't feel especially balanced. (And, Gena Rowlands is always good, and Seymour is memorable in probably his most energetic role of the 1970s.) But I do see what Cassavetes was saying, with its frantic approach to life: that we are all imperfect and we have to love and accept each other with all of our eccentric flaws. Having said that, I don't know that I needed to see this movie to realize that, and I don't know that I would see this again just to see Gena.That was Gena's mother as her mother at the end, by the way. And, to top it all off, Seymour's mother really put him down in the last few minutes of the movie, which makes the viewer appreciate even more Gena's ultimate acceptance of his proposal, and how did writer/director Cassavetes come up with names like Moskowitz and Minnie Moore? I guess by the end of the movie Gena is now Minnie Moore Moskowitz. On that note....

I feel as though I know these people and have known people similar to them. These days, though, people are discouraged from showing such passion about anything especially love and loneliness. It has a slow beginning, but then look out! If you love romantic comedies, but would like to see one that had some basis in reality for a change {or at least did have back in the 70's}, then you should see this movie!

This is an incredible achievement for John Cassavetes. Not only has he made an outstanding screwball/romantic comedy, but he has also made a deep and biting attack on the way we let the movies(and also our culture) shape the way we see the world. For those of you who are seeking a love story, Cassavetes provides an extremely lovely one. The rules of the screwball genre are strictly followed. A man meets a woman, they are an impossible match in terms of personality, they try to fall in love, then comes the inevitable 'hiccups' in their relationship, and last but not least, the happy ending. But, as has always been the case with Cassavetes, that is only a very small fraction of what you'll get. He obviously has got a lot more to say. The 'surface' story is not the only story here. Beneath it lies another 'story'. And I don't think the other story will ever get past you unnoticed. The real story here is a 'cultural' one. It is a biting attack on the way we let movies and our culture influence our way of seeing the world. How does he present this attack? Well let me give you an example. The other day I watched this film with a friend. He made quite a few comments but the most striking one was when he complained about how is it that someone as unattractive as Seymour Moskowitz could get a woman as pretty as Minnie to like him(when you see the film you'll see). Now that is exactly the kind of attitude that Cassavetes is attacking. Why must everyone be 'handsome' or 'good looking' to be able to get a girl to like him? Minnie will constantly say to Seymour in the film that, "That's not the right face. You're not the man I'm in love with." It's a subtle attack but no less powerful. There's even one instance where Minnie, while in conversation with her friend, talks about movies as being a conspiracy because "They set you up. And no matter how bright you are you still believe it." This is a shining example of the fact that it is not enough to just recognise the problem, because it doesn't mean anything until you do something about it. There's a lot more, but I don't think it will be fun if I talked about everything. Part of the thrill of watching a movie like this is figuring it out. So I'll just talk about the 'surface' story a little bit more. A lot of people has called this movie 'earnestly real'. But don't be put off by that because like this world we live in, it's not all grim and grin. This isn't a Ken Loach film. While Cassavetes definitely does show us how ugly the world really is and can be, he has got enough insight to also show us that life can also be wonderful. I can give you a lot more examples, but I think it's best if you discover them for yourself. My comment here does not do justice to the movie. There's too much for me to say. And I don't think the space here allows it. So just go and see the movie. It'll be worth every minute.