Self-important, over-dramatic, uninspired.

This is a tender, generous movie that likes its characters and presents them as real people, full of flaws and strengths.

The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.

I wanted to like it more than I actually did... But much of the humor totally escaped me and I walked out only mildly impressed.

Almost from the onset we can tell that Lenny and Lila are not meant to be. An early shot reveals that perhaps it was only the promise of sex that made Lenny agree to the marriage. On day one of the honeymoon period, they are happily bellowing The Carpenters from their car and cheering about Miami Beach. By day two they are practically screaming and yelling at each other. Jeannie Berlin plays the dopey, overexcited bride; they have just tied the knot and she is already preparing for their golden oldies, and he's tilting his head around the corner, looking back on what he left behind. May taps into a Jewish type homeliness that Berlin immediately takes on board. Watch Lila devour an egg-salad sandwich without the least bit of concern about her appearance, and see Lenny cringe on the spot and re-evaluate his whole life. His new wife is pretty, though a little big-nosed, and can't hold a candle to the angelic WASP beauty that approaches him during their honeymoon. Just compare them physically, which is what Lenny does right away. She is a young Cybill Shephard, who seems to descend down from the heavens themselves into Lenny's eyeline. Because his wife is lying in their hotel like a wrinkly bright red prune, he is immediately taken to her like a teenager who catches a pretty schoolgirl's eye is. Every word out of Kelly's mouth is the gospel, her laugh is like a newborn baby's first. And all the while he is rushing into the room and rushing out half dressed, spinning another unlikely story to Lila. Grodin has the uncanny ability to seem so sincere, so self-righteous. He is an early Woody Allen prototype, so when he is accused of something he rightly knows he is guilty of, he explodes defensively, getting mightily offended that she would even suggest such a thing. He does the same thing in perhaps the funniest scene in the film, where he tentatively breaks the news of divorce to his wife of five days. If she would have a little pecan pie before the bad news she will be okay, Lenny thinks, so he is furious when the restaurant has run out. Without even thinking, he frames the talk as though it is he that is making the sacrifice here, setting her free so she can chase her dreams or whatnot. Lila is of course too naive, too innocent, which forces the excruciating words out of Lenny's mouth. So while the poor girl is basically hyperventilating, he has already swept clean his conscience and moved on, thinking himself having done the right thing. Ah, the pecan pie arrives just in time for the sobbing ex-wife, a piece of brilliant comedic timing. "You gonna eat the pie? You want a little piece of pie?" prods Lenny, as if dessert will solve everything. The film is mightily funny because Grodin plays Lenny completely and unrelentingly straight. He believes sincerely in every phony and god-given word that comes out of his mouth, and has a determination only matched by his stupidity. We sense that Kelly is used to dangling men on her arm; she has a whole posse around her everywhere she prances in college, and can even persuade her father to do things he would never dream of doing. Before Lenny she has never been approached and propositioned by someone so straightforward, so without shame. Only by sheer persistence can he replicate the same fling from the sun-kissed Miami beaches to snowy Minnesota.The genius of Grodin's performance is that he does not see himself as doing any wrong, and this gives him the false confidence to wreak havoc no matter where he goes. When a schoolgirl smiles at those sideburns and teddy-bear locks of his, he gives a stupid, adolescent grin like Christmas has come early. And when he sees her naked for the first time, he blurts out a teenager's line. Lenny has the ability to say the most outrageous things with a straight face; "There's no lying in that beef," and so on. This is reminiscent of Chance the gardener in Being There, whose metaphoric life advice gave a wholesome country food for the soul. Mr Corcoran, the most sensible character here, sees right through him, and so do we, but because he is a teenager in love, he will go to the ends of the earth and then some to get want he wants. So we smash cut hilariously to the wedding, where an ecstatic Lenny has just gotten his gift. He wanders around, engages in some small talk, and then is left alone once again. His first marriage lasted all of five days, and now this one is already boring him during the ceremony! At times the actions of Lenny are cringe worthy, and it is hard to watch, but how engaging is it to see how far he can take it all. The film painfully and humorously reveals the depths that sheer will can take us.

This was written by Neil Simon but is more loose-limbed and subtle than most of his other work. It was directed efficiently by Elaine May and her daughter, Jeanne Berlin, has a prominent role as Charles Grodin's bride. They are in ecstasy, dancing to the tunes of Burt Bacharach. Both are bourgeois but differences soon emerge when they take off for their honeymoon in Miami. She pulls down her bodice and playfully bares her boobs to him while he's trying to drive on the crowded interstate. "STOP it, the TRUCK drivers will see!" She sulks a little.This is clearly Neil Simon territory, two slightly mismatched people, as in "The Odd Couple," only with far more nuance, as it develops.Grodin is conventionally handsome and young, while Berlin has more interesting characteristics. She's plumper than usual (too many Milky Ways) and she has strong, fleshy, attractive features. She is matronly towards Grodin and loving, too. Her voice is so nasal that it might make a good, irritating whine, but she speaks so slowly and mellifluously that her tone is endearing.The morning after their first night as a couple, they have breakfast in the attached motel restaurant. He eats his hamburger delicately, like a surgeon. She orders a double egg salad sandwich and a chocolate shake and smears everything all over her lips while Grodin stares aghast. "Want a bite?", she asks, offering him the half-eaten sandwich. And, "Leonard, look around. There's us in fifty years, isn't it?" Grodin looks over his shoulder to see a wizened, stooped old man trying to help his gnome-like wife into her coat. It's already funny and it's hardly begun. The film turns her into a repellent figure, covers her bright red body with cold cream and odium.Maybe it should have stuck with that one relationship -- Grodin and Berlin -- because half way through, Grodin falls for. Cybil Shepherd, the summum bonum of femininity, full of confidence, cute little quirks, and stunning. She's rich, she's beautiful, she's flirtatious, she has a perfect figure, she's indifferent, and she's a shiksa named Kelly. He bumps into her on the beach. You ought to see Miami Beach in the winter -- hardly a soul who isn't eligible for membership in AARP, wobbling stiffly about, retired, gray-haired, wrinkled, flabby, and brown. No kids. I take the caricature to be deliberate, another reminder of what Grodin and Berlin will be like in "forty or fifty years." Now the story takes us from Grodin feeling superior to Berlin, to Shepherd's Aryan Minnesota family and their goyim naches. Now HE gets to feel demeaned. The story is like a sandwich with a double filling of egg-salad humiliation and, while it's funny, it sort of disjoints the whole movie.The head of Kelly Corcoran's family is the very rich and anti-Semitic Eddie Albert, who is obnoxious throughout. But one of his friends is William Prince (the pharmacist's mate in "Destination Tokyo") whom I've always like because he and I share the same alma mater. Grodin dumps Berlin, gives her everything, and heads after Shepherd to Minneapolis, where he visits Kelly's house and her father threatens to kill him if he ever shows up again. Worse, Shepherd has almost forgotten him and now has no time for him because she's late for an English Lit class. The flirtation in Florida that she's laughed off, Grodin took seriously. It's like Bruno and Guy in Hitchcock's "Strangers on a Train." Shepherd, quite unconvincingly, changes her attitude after a brief conversation. At their marriage reception, Grodin finds himself talking to wealthy businessmen who manufacture tear gas. He's polite but not interested. Finally, he's isolated on a couch with only two ten-year olds listening to him before they too leave, out of boredom. Grodin sits alone, humming Burt Bacharach to himself, and we have little idea of where this is all headed. He's young, resourceful, and innovative, but alternately determined and then so impulsive we can doubt that he has functioning frontal lobes. Or he could go mad and start screaming at any moment.

If I could I would score this film 6.5 out of 10, but I can't so I gave it a 7 to be nice. For me a 5 is watchable and anything lower than 5 is negative. I quite liked this film whilst watching it, but can see some of the flaws others have mentioned.This film did make me smile a number of times: - The relentless lies and the unnerving way in which they were told. I didn't find the behaviour callous, I don't think it was being presented that way, and the personality of Lyla is so irritating that I could easily understand why the newly-wed groom capitalised on the opportunity to escape her. As such I did find that part of the film quite humorous.There are one or two great lines for the lead character, particularly the card-laying scene and the manner in which he describes his appreciation of the meal at Kelly's parents.Cybil Shepherd is just beautiful. The sort of beauty that makes me smile uncontrollably just looking at her. Beautiful in a way that made an instant and lasting impact on me and will be the primary memory I will take away from this film. I've only ever seen her in the 1990's sitcom 'Cybil' before watching this film and now don't know whether to seek out the rest of her work or not - I don't want to spoil the image I have of her from this film.The final scene. Listening to Lenny repeat ad infinitum his baseless rhetoric about wanting to put back into the country, finally ending up unloading it on a couple of kids, and neither of them buy it either. It rather reminded me of myself and my fruitless search for some sort of sense of purpose in the employment I have had, not knowing what sort of job I wanted but knowing deep down that whatever it was it probably doesn't exist anyway, and then boring other people about it at parties. I don't know if this was meant to be about Lenny's lack of satisfying employment or a metaphor for his search for the right woman - I'll have to watch it again and pay particular attention to the beginning of the film to see if his employment is a theme or not. It's only touched on lightly in the main content of the film so I'm not sure. But either way the scene makes me smile in a melancholic way. I do like dark humour.The main flaw in the film to me is that Lenny does not seem the type of male that would win the affections of Kelly. She is obviously 'well-bred' and I can't see what Lenny offers her other than a play-thing for the duration of her Florida holiday, but he's not rich, especially good-looking or even likable. So why she ever ends up marrying him I don't know. It comes so close to the end of the film that I can only figure it was a deliberate contrivance to make the point about Lenny's character in the most efficient way.Overall though a likable film that I will try to see again to see if I can figure out some of the finer points. Definitely better than the 2007 remake. I must admit here that I don't like Ben Stiller in most of the films I've seen him in, which introduces bias, but I can't remember coming away from watching that one thinking anything good about it apart from the fact I think the last word in the script is c***s.

Charles Grodin plays a Jewish New Yorker who takes his earthy new bride to Miami for their honeymoon, but becomes increasingly disillusioned with her on the trip--most especially because of a flirty, leggy blonde from Minnesota whom he meets on the beach. With Neil Simon writing this screenplay, one is almost instantly aware not of the class issue (it doesn't matter to Simon who has more money than who) but of the Jewish angle. Simon makes the bride gross and vulgar, and Jeannie Berlin has been encouraged to play these non-attributes to the hilt, while Cybill Shepherd's Protestant sex-goddess is the epitome of sarcastic poise. Simon wins points against the new wife by playing up her Jewishness in all its stereotypical brashness; it's as if the volume is up too loud. "The Heartbreak Kid" has many things going for it--the excellent performances and some very humorous asides to name two--but the intentional lewdness behind Grodin's marital predicament, and the queasy way he ingratiates himself into Shepherd's family, isn't so much hilarious as it is cringe-inducing. Shepherd's no-nonsense father, wonderfully played in an I've-seen-everything-now way by Eddie Albert, reacts accordingly to Grodin's new proposals with anger and confusion, and in these instances the film touches on something much deeper than the modern Jewish man's internal struggle. Unfortunately, this is mainly what Simon has on his plate, and it wears the audience down--and seems very dated now, anyway. Elaine May's direction is fashionably ragged and somewhat detached, and her ending is thoughtful (if, in retrospect, uneventful). The story certainly needed a modern tweaking, as this version is just a little bit undernourished (more mean-spirited than funny), however a 2007 remake fared even worse. **1/2 from ****