As Good As It Gets

Fun premise, good actors, bad writing. This film seemed to have potential at the beginning but it quickly devolves into a trite action film. Ultimately it's very boring.

A clunky actioner with a handful of cool moments.

An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

A woman is released from prison and then starts stalking a man. But why?Starring Anthony Perkins and Geraldine Chaplin.Written and directed by Alan Rudolph.This movie has such a promising premise but ultimately it's a frustrating watch.It did keep my interest and I was fascinated all the way through to know what was going on and why this strange woman was stalking the main protagonist and his wife. The stand out performance was by Geraldine Chaplin, she played a great part. Unfortunately Perkins was quite wooden and I wanted to poke his screen wife (Berry Berenson) with a very long stick to see if she was still alive. The ending was frustrating. I was hoping that all the loose ends would be tied up or we would at least get a decent twist, but I was left with more questions than answers. I usually don't mind open endings, but this one left me feeling short changed. What the heck actually happened at the end? What the heck happened in their relationship before she was locked up in prison?Too many unanswered questions and I really can't be bothered surfing any movie related message boards to find out. I'll move on to the next old movie.7/10

I suppose the main criticism you can level against a film like REMEMBER MY NAME is that it has a distinctly tame, quiet, television-movie style feel to it, so that the drama feels oddly muted for a movie made for the cinemas. It's a late '70s stalker story along the lines of PLAY MISTY FOR ME, although not quite as good as the Eastwood movie.What REMEMBER MY NAME does have going for it is an excellent cast of past and future stars who enliven an otherwise ordinary tale. The story involves a seemingly happily married couple who are disturbed by the arrival of the husband's old flame who seems obsessed with resuming their relationship. What follows is quietly gripping in places, although the film as a whole is let down by a non-existent ending and a definite lack of incident.Anthony Perkins is excellent at playing these mild-mannered characters hiding dark secrets but the real acting honours go to Geraldine Chaplin, who invests her disturbed character with real authenticity; she's absolutely frightening in the part. The supporting cast includes plenty of faces who would go on to become famous in the future: Tim Thomerson, Dennis Franz, and best of all a skinny Jeff Goldblum. Blaxploitation actor Moses Gunn also has a role.

A really great movie anchored by a spectacular Geraldine Chaplin performance. Writer/director Alan Rudolph creates a real sense of melancholia with this film. Chaplin is a recent parolee who stalks ex-husband Anthony Perkins & his new wife Berry Berenson. As bleak as things are, there are also moments of real humor laced throughout this oddity. Chaplin does NOT adjust well to her freedom. She's scary, funny and inappropriately confrontational. Perkins is fine as is Berenson and the supporting cast also includes Alfre Woodard and a very funny Jeff Goldblum (as Chaplin's doltish boss). But the film belongs to Chaplin. Her performance is one of the finest of the 1970s. Alberta Hunter contributes some excellent songs that move the story a long and the cinematography by Tak Fujimoto is stunning.

(Some Spoilers) Showing up in town to start a new life Emily, Geraldine Chaplin, begins stalking the Curry's Neil & Barbara, Anthony Perkins & Berry Berenson,making in the end their lives miserable and causing the two to break up, with Emily being the other woman, in a weird and drunken relationship between her and Neil.It takes a while to figure out what exactly Emily has to do with the Curry's. In between her strange and violent antics were pounded over the head with TV and radio news reports of a massive 8.6 earthquake in the Hungarian capital city of Budapest that, by the time the movie is over, killed upwards of one million people.Getting a job at Mr. Nudd's, played by a very emaciated looking Jeff Goldblum, .99 cent bargain store as a cashier we finally get an idea of what Emily is all about with the knowledge that she was a cell-mate of Mr. Nudd's mother who was serving a life sentence from the murder of her husband, and Mr. Nudd's father. Mrs. Nudd promised Emily, also a convicted murderess, a job at her son's bargain store when she go out of prison.Emily uses the job to steal money from the cash register and keep tabs on the Curry's who occasionally shop in the store. The big surprise comes much later in the movie when we find out that Emily was at one time, before he met Barbara, married to Neil Curry and was driven to insanity and murder when she found that he was cheating on her. We get a good insight of a woman scorned in Emily's conduct towards her ex-husband Neil whom she does all she can to destroy his life and marriage as well as everyone who has anything to do with him.Going so far as to strike up a relationship with her super and the apartment security guard Pike, Moses Gunn, who at first wanted to have nothing to do with the crazy nut-case. Later Pike inexplicably fell under her spell and was as easy to handle and manipulate by Emily as a puppy being lead by a leash. It turns out that Emily has a maniacal plan, that she cooked up while in prison, to punish Neil for everything that he did to her. One thing she was planning was to get Neil alone, and drunk, in her apartment and have her "lover" who in this case turned to be the very hair-triggered and jealous Pike catch him there, and with the poor guy handcuffed to the bed, violently work him over. I think that's what happened at the end of the movie even though it was all left, being off camera, to the audiences imagination.A story of insanity and revenge with both Geraldine Chaplin and Anthony Perkins giving Academy Award caliber performances with the haunting music of the late Alberta Hunter on the soundtrack singing her very timely song, that's just right for the movie, "Remember my Name throughout the entire film "The Love I have for you".